We are now into December, and more has been revealed - I would like to hear your thoughts on Obama’s decisions so far. Also, has time since the election been good to Palin - can she now be seen as the true conservative she is? Or, rather, has she cemented herself in the public eye as the incompetent the Left thought she was?

I raise these questions because the many points that you both (Eric and Jim - with apologies to the other contributors) raise resonate deeply with those who voted this year - people who have been, since at least College Philosophy 101, wrestling with the concept that this country mandates some human life as more valuable than others. That this country, the greatest in the world, fails in so many many areas - how is it, for example, that an American child could be without (you enter the choice: food, shelter, education)? That Eric has dedicated his life to a cause he feels deeply about is admirable - that I can continue to wrestle with this very same cause is another wonderful by-product of democracy - but that our government can determine who lives and who dies (which is what it is really all about, isn’t it?) seems like so much lunacy.

If you two ever do get together over that cup of coffee - please invite me along - I would relish the discussion.

Hope you and your families both are well - all the best,

fitz

That idea comes from a book I just read called Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy, which devotes considerable attention to Roosevelt in its epilogue. He was quite eager to go to war with one of the European powers — didn’t care which one, though he would have preferred Britain (in the event, it was Spain).

Here’s a quote from TR when he was Secretary of the Navy (via Wikipedia): “I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one”. Roosevelt was largely responsible for a build-up of the U.S. Navy — so in both word and deed, a “warmonger”.

“[McCain] and Palin have lied about EVERYTHING (literally)”

I was going to have some fun at your expense over your use of the word “literally,” but instead I’ll just assume that you don’t literally mean “literally”.

But I wonder why you’re so bent out of shape about McCain’s lies, but untroubled by Obama’s lies about his connection with Bill Ayers and own record on on the partial birth abortion ban and the Born Alive Infants Protection Act — not to mention his lies this weekend about McCain’s social security proposal.

“Reaganomics, trickle down/supply side garbage has destroyed the middle class.”

Really? Then who’s living in all those subdivisions they’ve been building in the cornfields out here?

take a look.

hope alls well, my friend. James

McCain is absolutely a war monger. Loves it, thrives on it, and is DEPENDING on it for his presidency. He is obviously unfit to lead a nation, his truth telling ability is seriously flawed. Him and Palin have lied about EVERYTHING (literally) from how she accepted the v.p. invitation to cooperating in Troopergate to McCain saying Palin didn’t take any earmarks to well just about every word that has come out of his mouth.

I am not a pacifist, though I think wars are idiotic, and unjust wars for oil and money and propping up Bush and Cheney’s pet companies, and privatizing a war so cronies and friends can make millions on the backs of dead children are EVIL.

Do I think we should get out of Iraq, and Iraqis be damned…maybe. I mean as Americans we have said god damned to atrocities all over the world, we ignore, we don’t pay attention. We went in there with no plan, with nothing but dollar signs and revenge for Bush I in our eyes, and now 6 years later, we have crap. Nothing. Hundreds of billions of dollars taken away from education and health insurance and infrastructure, hundreds of billions of dollars borrowed from China or Saudi Arabia to support a war that served no purpose except to make the world less safe and more dangerous.

Because of Bush and McCain both promoting this war and discussing what a cake walk it would be, we took our eye off of Afghanistan and Pakistan (and look what happened today) and the Taliban and the terrorists have grown and prospered and continue to terrorize innocent people because America was stupid and without any foresight.

Will Obama end war and bring peace…maybe, for a while. Or maybe he will use our resources a little more wisely so sick children can have health insurance, so social security will actually be secure, so rich corporations will actually have to pay tax on their profits. Democrats balance budgets, democrats help the citizens. Reaganomics, trickle down/supply side garbage has destroyed the middle class.

Is Obama the savior, no; but without a doubt, McCain and the right and their incessant, pathological deceptions and their focusing on wedge issues and helping the rich ARE the problem. Four more years of that might just destroy this country…

“. . . McCain has talked about expanding the military and how there were going to be ‘more wars’.”

Are you telling me that electing Barack Obama will mean the end of war? Peace will reign o’er all the Earth?

“Once these troops leave, what do you think is going to happen?”

I’d say that depends on how well the reconstruction effort goes, don’t it?

But what you’re saying is that there’s nothing we can do to prevent civil war and disaster in Iraq. Which makes this statement puzzling:

“McCain has NO intention of removing troops from Iraq…none.”

If you really believe disaster will inevitably result from our withdrawal from Iraq, then why do you advocate pulling out our troops? Shouldn’t we keep them there — forever — if that’s what it takes to prevent the bloodbath of all-out civil war?

You and Barack are ready to pull out of Iraq, and the Iraqis be damned. And you call McCain the warmonger!

“I have this video posted on my blog, but I’m putting it here..it’s a little graphic, . . .”

I know you’re not a pacifist, Jim, because you call war a “last resort”, suggesting that under certain conditions war can be waged justly. But in my reading of history, the just wars are just as brutal and ugly as the unjust ones.

I’m also reminded of your response to me once when I made reference to the graphic cruelty of abortion. You told me I “ought to know better.”

“There is no nuance to a warmonger.”

I don’t know if that’s even true—war monger Teddy Roosevelt is regarded by historians to be one of our greatest presidents—but it’s silly to talk about McCain as a “warmonger”—save that for the Daily Kos.

This is a guy whose actually been to war, suffered the brutality of war firsthand, and yet was instrumental in normalizing relations with the Vietnamese who had tortured him for five years. That doesn’t sound like a warmonger to me.

I have this video posted on my blog, but I’m putting it here..it’s a little graphic, but you’ll get a good idea of what a vote for McCain means….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdJUCU1UH2w

There is no nuance to a warmonger.

Come on, Jim. McCain was very clearly talking about the certainty that troops will have some presence in Iraq for the foreseeable future, not that hostilities would continue for 50 or 100 years. You have to know that.

We still have troops stationed in Germany and Japan. Are you telling me we’re still at war with Germany and Japan?

Your calls for “nuance” and your complaints about lies and misrepresentation by the McCain campaign sound pretty hollow when you twist McCain’s words like this.

In fact, I’m going to donate 50 bucks to Obama right now…

And finally did you see what I posted last night in comment #10…I got the days wrong…AIG collapsed today and now OUR GOVERNMENT is buying 80% of them with 85 billion dollars…so it’ll probably be Wasington Mutual tomorrow. The reason for this, Phil Gramm, deregulation, and greed….all Republican hallmarks.

Amen, brother.

“… we’re witnessing its extinction right now.”

Let’s hope so. But it is too soon to say so.

We can only hope the deliberations at Obama’s fuhrerbunker really do look like this.