McCain has already hit Obama twice on his words, specifically on his not keeping his word. He is establishing his strategy for Obama; Obama not a man of his word. This may sound silly because I don't think you can be a politician if you are a person of your word. But remember when Gore was made out to be the great exaggerator? Like all politicians do not exaggerate their accomplishments?

Obama is vulnerable here. Not because he exaggerates, misleads, or changes positions when it benefits him politically more than other politicians do, it is because he claims to be "new" type of politician (vs "old" school I guess), when in terms of politicking he can easily be exposed as any other politician.

People are only physically safe behind the safety of their computer screens, they are neither emotionally or psychologically safe. It can be very intense personally. Ok, it is not like when swords were carried and interaction had to be much more careful and civil in choice of words or you end up in a duel with a sword potentially up your ass, but it is still real visceral human interaction. This is humanity up on our computer screens not pixels. There is a tremendous opportunity for honesty of expression and risk taking in expression. And yeah there is a downside in that everyone gets to expose their latent sociopathic tendencies, but the freedom is worth it.

So "yes we can't" to censorship already.

...is I think the whole point.

The ticking time-bomb scenario is a smoke screen. In real life situations, if there are enough specifics available to know that the person in custody is CERTAIN to have the specific information needed for immediate action, it is likely there already is enough specifics for immediate action.

With pre-emptive torture, it's like data mining, collect a bunch of guys hopefully correctly identified as bad guys, then torture them with the hope one of them will spill some useful piece of information. This is humanity at it's worst.

As a side note MediaMatters has extensively documented BOs self-glorified ignorance.

If you are simply parroting facts, or peoples views, that makes you, well a parrot.

If you use different sources (facts, views, opinions) to triangulate your own ideas, that makes you an intellectual.

If your most common response to any difficult question is, "What do I need facts for - What do I need different view points for - I already made up my mind." you are anti-intellectual.

I guess anyone who believes the Bible is true is stupid?

That seems to be the general argument. It's a really stupid argument. -- thingswesaid

Two key words in your statment: "believes" and "true".

Jews do not believe Jesus is the saviour, effectivley "believing" the Christian Bible is not true. I hope you don't think that makes Jews stupid.

The Bible as any spiritual text is about explaining unprovable truths, making known the unknowable to get fancy about it. Anyone who believes in the Bible is not stupid. They are stupid when they can't tell the difference between the Bible and science.

Don't you get the feeling that Bush et al are really just trying to see how far Congress will let them go? And that the answer is "we don't know yet"? -- What Constitution?

Yes absolutely. Bushes entire mode of operations has been based on based on how much can I get away with. How far can I go. I wonder if he is surprised as anyone as to how far we have let him go.

Obama is the panderer in Chief. Look at his "Move over Huckabee" flyer exhorting himself as "The Christian candidate" in Carolina. Some nuggets from his flyer:

"Answering the Call"

"A committed Christian"

"Called to Christ - Called to bring Change"

"Barack on the power of Prayer"

HE IS TELLING PEOPLE TO VOTE FOR HIM BECAUSE HE IS CHRISTIAN. IT'S WHAT BUSH DID. It was deplorable when Bush did it, it is deplorable when Huckabee does it, and it is deplorable when Obama does it.

All politicians are panderers, thats how they get elected. But a religious panderer is the worst. It's disgusting. But go ahead continue, ignore it, Obama is like the Pope, he can do no wrong.

It would be cool though if he put out flyers exhorting himslef as "The Black Candidate", or "The Upper Middle Class Educated Candidate", or the "Non-Muslim Candidate". Guess that ain't gonna happen, well unless he gets behind in the primaries or the general election.

I admire the effort on the video, but I found it kinda flat. *shrug* Funny, tho, how quickly the angry Hillary people ran in here just to throw stones. Telling, that. -- swilldog

Dumb ass you came in here to throw stones at the video. (or should I call it a little condescending pebble). Please go ahead congratulate yourself again on how superior you are.

is not a plan.

Who in their right mind thinks a 60 page document is going to solve all of Americas and the worlds ills. It's a platform, a statment of operating principles. It is not a fukkin plan.

Here's my "plan" for world hunger:

I believe no one one in the world should go hungry, all we need to do is believe, pull together and believe we can, then we'll get a bunch of food and give to all the people in the world who are hungry.

Whoopee, a helluva plan, no?

That said, McCain is running virtually neck and neck with Obama in head to head polls and he does not even have the support of the hard right base. If he can pursuade enough of those Huckabee supporters over to him, he has a chance to win. Under-estimating McCain is a huge mistake.