Personal assaults on Obama

BenBurch said:
One does not graduate with honors from a major university and have any lack of intellect at all. Quite a different thing from sailing through with a "gentleman's C" as some have.
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Oh, there must be some exceptions. Some people resist institutional lobotomization.
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
1. It's a direct rebuttal of Travis' suggestion that skeptics of Obama's intellect will doubt the intellect of all blacks.
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So the "some of my best friends are black" defense was supposed to make your factually unfounded accusation Obama was an "equal opportunity baby" somehow less racist?

2. You mean, anything less than certainty is unwelcome in a skeptics' forum? Strange.
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When you admit you don't know a specific fact but base your argument on that fact anyway, yes.

I doubt any of them needed or benefitted from affirmative action.
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Your wish fulfillment aside, for all you know, all of them might have benefited from AA. Funny how you simultaneously imagine Obama benefited from AA and imagine your (claimed) associates did not. Notice the common thread here?

4. It ("affirmative action baby") explains the combination of and incoherent policy.
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If this were a CT it would be a Stundie nomination for sure.
 
Robrob said:
Having actually graduated from military courses which could properly be termed "Leadership 101" I have to say the whole kerfluffle astounds me. I thought the Commander in Chief gave proper credit where credit was due, many, many times - during the initial announcement as well as in later press conferences.

I'd love to hear how the arm-chair quarterbacks think the announcement should have been worded? :rolleyes:
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Drop the references to his own actions, how hard is that? As has been made clear through the use of absurdity, it's totally superfluous for the CinC to point out that he authorized or directed a military operation. What was the purpose of the announcement? Was it to announce the killing of Bin Laden and credit the military and counterterrorism professionals and everyone involved in the last ten years? If so, why was it necessary to point out how the CinC was involved (or to "contrast his actions with that of his predecessor")? (Hint: it wasn't.)
Good leaders don't need to toot their own horn.
 
TimCallahan said:
I remember when Clinton was first elected president. At the time, I was monitoring our local fundamentalist radio station, KKLA. The vitriol they launched against Clinton really appalled me. Their attitude was "How dare this liberal get elected president?" There was no sense of accepting that more people voted for the other guy than voted for your candidate, and their hatred of Clinton was rabid.

However, that's nothing compared to the crap leveled at Obama, latest of which is revealed in a new thread on this twit from the rock group Megadeath accusing Obama of staging the shootings at the Sikh temple and in Texas. Obama has been accused of being a secret Muslim and of not being born in the territorial U.S. and hence no having the right to be president, among other things. It's one thing to oppose his policies and want him out of office. It's quite another to accuse him of being a crypto-Muslim.

So, I'm wondering what the cause of all this is. Is it just the steadily devolving nature of the religious right producing ever more shrill and irrational statements, or is it sub rosa racism? Does anyone have any ideas?
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What is new here? Research the U.S. Presidential election of 1828, Jackson's wife was called a whore.
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
I know personally a black soil scientist, a black Public Health PhD, a black Math Phd, and a black Psychology Phd. I doubt any of them needed or benefitted from affirmative action. Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams are too old to have benefitted from affirmative action, and they are quite economically literate. Unlike our current President.
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"I'm not a racist, some of my best friends are colored!"

Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
4. It explains the combination of
and incoherent policy.
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About two years ago I got into an argument with a former member of this forum on whether Obama was a communist. Amongst his evidence was an unsigned note scribbled onto a scrap of paper, written in barely legible English, speaking for Barack Obama to forward his enthusiasm with regards to cooperating with an Illinois-based communist organization. When pressed on the credibility of the note he simply stated that it fit with the body of evidence he presented.

I'm telling you this story to illustrate a point; no one bought into his confirmation bias then and no one is buying into yours now. You need much more solid evidence than it fitting your preconceived notions of what a person who has benefited from affirmative action is like.
 
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Robrob said:
So the "some of my best friends are black" defense1 was supposed to make your factually unfounded accusation Obama was an "equal opportunity baby" somehow less racist?2
When you admit you don't know a specific fact but base your argument on that fact anyway, yes.3

Your wish fulfillment aside, for all you know, all of them might have benefited from AA. Funny how you simultaneously imagine Obama benefited from AA and imagine your (claimed) associates did not.4 Notice the common thread here?5...
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1. Travis implied that my assertion of Obama's economic illiteracy and ignorance indicates a belief on my part that all blacks are economically illiterate and ignorant. The examples I provide rebut this. It's no more the case that "Obama is a buffoon" implies "all blacks are buffoons" than "Lee Oswald was a murderer" implies "all whites are murderers".
2. Why does the suggestion that Obama benefitted from affirmative action qualify as "racist"? Affirmative action benefits some people, doesn't it?
3. Please clarify: what "fact", according to you, do I "base" my argument on?
4. No. Many of the people I cited are too old to have benefitted from affirmative action.
5. Yes: unfounded accusations of racism.
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
1. Travis implied that my assertion of Obama's economic illiteracy and ignorance indicates a belief on my part that all blacks are economically illiterate and ignorant. The examples I provide rebut this. It's no more the case that "Obama is a buffoon" implies "all blacks are buffoons" than "Lee Oswald was a murderer" implies "all whites are murderers".
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You have not provided any example that proves anything beyond that you disagree with Obama - which only proves economic literacy on Obama´s part.

2. Why does the suggestion that Obama benefitted from affirmative action qualify as "racist"? Affirmative action benefits some people, doesn't it?
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Because it says that Obama didn´t actually achieve anything - that he got it because he is black.

3. Please clarify: what "fact", according to you, do I "base" my argument on?
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Your assorted BS claims about economics, for starters.
 
Augustine said:
Drop the references to his own actions, how hard is that? As has been made clear through the use of absurdity, it's totally superfluous for the CinC to point out that he authorized or directed a military operation. What was the purpose of the announcement? Was it to announce the killing of Bin Laden and credit the military and counterterrorism professionals and everyone involved in the last ten years? If so, why was it necessary to point out how the CinC was involved (or to "contrast his actions with that of his predecessor")? (Hint: it wasn't.)
Good leaders don't need to toot their own horn.
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Who exactly would you have wanted to have made such an announcement, then?

And, btw, what is your particular military experience, Augustine? You keep harping on military leadership 101 in this thread, yet at least one other person here who has actually studied such subjects finds no fault with President Obama's actions. I'm curious as to know what is your background on these questions...

... or are you another armchair quarterback chickenhawk hailing from the Dick Cheney school of politics?
 
Chaos said:
You have not provided any example that proves anything beyond that you disagree with Obama - which only proves economic literacy on Obama´s part.1
Because it says that Obama didn´t actually achieve anything - that he got it because he is black.2
Your assorted BS claims about economics, for starters.3
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1. One of us, anyway.
Obama: "Spending is stimulus."
2. Right. Why is that racist? There's no way Maurice Ashley, for example, benefitted from affirmative action.
3. Derail, sorry, but please provide an example. Why does not this
prove your economic illiteracy?
 
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BenBurch said:
Hatred takes time to develop, I guess, because Obama and Reagan are very close together in matters of policy.
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Reagan had eight years. I supported him before he got elected. I never supported Obama. No way is Obama a free marketeer. No way did Reagan endorse anything like the Affordable Care Act.
 
Augustine said:
You said "which is it, share credit with his predecessor or not mention any credit of any executive decisions" and that is a false dichotomy as I pointed out.
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No it's not. You said one should only credit subordinates, and you also said Obama should have given (more) credit to Bush (though you've yet to say why).

Now unless you consider Bush to be Obama's subordinate, the two statements are not compatible. So which is it? Credit only subordinates, or is it OK also to credit leaders?

Again, is there anything Obama could have said (or not said) that would have made you happy?

It certainly would not have been OK to make no statement after the helicopter crash already attracted journalists, right?
 
Megalodon said:
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
Megalodon said:
Next thing you're going to tell me that Reagan is credited with the fall of the Soviet Union...
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In some WarsawPact countries, and elsewhere, yes. Magaret Thatcher, John Paul II, Lech Walesa, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and a few million other people participated.
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Like clockwork. Thank you for proving my point...
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You're welcome. What was your point? Please avoid the passive voice.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
No it's not. You said one should only credit subordinates, and you also said Obama should have given (more) credit to Bush (though you've yet to say why).

Now unless you consider Bush to be Obama's subordinate, the two statements are not compatible. So which is it? Credit only subordinates, or is it OK also to credit leaders?

Again, is there anything Obama could have said (or not said) that would have made you happy?

It certainly would not have been OK to make no statement after the helicopter crash already attracted journalists, right?
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Provide the quote where I said this statement.
 
MattusMaximus said:
Who exactly would you have wanted to have made such an announcement, then?

And, btw, what is your particular military experience, Augustine? You keep harping on military leadership 101 in this thread, yet at least one other person here who has actually studied such subjects finds no fault with President Obama's actions. I'm curious as to know what is your background on these questions...

... or are you another armchair quarterback chickenhawk hailing from the Dick Cheney school of politics?
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CinC makes the announcement.

Field grade officer, four overseas tours. Any more information?

You forgot to respond to this:
You're a teacher, right? If you had an academic team from your school win an award, and you were announcing the winning of that award, would you make sure to tell everyone that you wrote the lesson plans prior to praising the students for their hard work? Would you make sure that everyone knew what you did first?
 
BenBurch said:
I don't think you are a racist, MK...
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Thanks. I'd like to see a discussion, sometime, in another thread, of the meaning of "racism". What beliefs about possible systematic differences between regional varieties of human merit the designation "racism". But that's a topic for another day.
 
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