this forum ought to be a bastion of resistance to the Dumbing-Down-- and Dumbed-Down of Amerika.

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the Grownups Are Trying to Talk

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A measured, thoughtful and evidence-based anlysis of a Presidency now in its -8th day! Just imagine what you could do with the first 12 hours of his Presidency.

Charles Taylor Jr was just sentenced to 97 years in prison for torture.

http://daltonator.net/durandal/blog/?p=169

I think Americans will be surprised by how relieved the people of Israel really are.

Good for them!

they don't have to build one to pursue one.

He had great intentions but like many of the homes he built for habitat for humanity they crumbled like the failed ideology he stood for.

Unlike the mighty, eternal edifice the glibertarians have erected. You wouldn't know liberty if it bit you in the ass. Good day.

I read recently, admittedly I can't remember where, that although Iran has strictly speaking halted its nuclear weapons program, it continues its uranium enrichment program. Apparently uranium enrichment is by far the hardest part of developing a nuclear bomb. Saber rattling got the US into Iraq, it's true, but that's no excuse to get duped by a technicality. Whether Obama's statement is more misleading than implying that Iran is not, in however roundabout a way, currently pursuing nuclear weapons, I don't know enough to say.

All that junk would be coming out of your mouth although come to think of it, there couldn't be much of a difference. Now Glenn Greenwald's perplexed question has been reduced to a squabble between Jews (American vintage) and Christians (American "cru"). Derbig Mooser is exercising his wit while Mrs. Mooser is at the beauty parlour talking Yiddish, Steele the First is talking about laxatives and some people are tumbling to the fact that Obama is more fraud than Freud.

You seem to think that you, Israel and Iran are the only people in this world of billions of people who really matter. Regrets, you've had a few but in the end too few to mention? You're making people everywhere reflect on the possibility that there is truth in the assessment of the United States as a nation that went from barbarism to decadence without passing through civilisation. Iran is a theocracy and so is Israel but Israelis resemble your favourite tv characters more closely because of their European origin, an image imprinted on your minds so firmly that Raschida Dati, a minister in Sarkozy's cabinet, gets no mention at all in a an NYT column musing over the possibility that Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni can be the salvation of the fashion industry. One is an African-American, the other is a white European, always the extremes. Raschida Dati is an Arab but a French citizen. She's far more beautiful than either of the other two being foisted on us as fashion icons but she will be ignored in the USA because its racism is no longer as overt as it once was but has permutated into an equally wicked manifestation of your insecurity. Yes, all Arabs are evil and, even though the Iranians aren't Arabs, they also must be evil because they have that funny religion. Obama is a figurehead and little more than that with his well-learned antipathy to Iran, now that I-raq has been seen off.

"(Carter) had great intentions but like many of the homes he built for habitat for humanity they crumbled like the failed ideology he stood for."

-- libertyaintfree

You mean the ideology that said the US shouldn't give in to the Iranian terrorists holding Americans hostages in 1980, who Reagan negotiated with behind Carter's back leading to America being rightfully seen since then as a weak, capitulating nation that can be brought to it's knees by terrorism? Read the rank fear in the mindset of someone like wbgonne, who like so many modern day americans believes the #1 job number for the US President is to "maintain security" rather than to maintain the Constitution (the president's actual #1 job). It's a bit hard to explain to people who's "ideology" includes the idea that it's better to be safe and lose your principles (and your spine) than to maintain your principles & backbone even if you should die. Live free or die is not something the Reagan, Bush, McCain crowd and their weak-kneed followers will ever understand.

"God. To think that Obama can make Bush look good!"

It is the duty of each new Presiddent to make his predecessor look not so bad anymore.

Carter was dreary and malaise ridden, then cane the flaming Reagan who had to be shot to settle him down and then Carter didn't look so bad at all, especially with Iran Contra and the weapons and drugs scandals.

Then the dirtbag Reagan was replaced by doped up Bush who eventually puked on the Prime minister of Japan, which made even Reagan, look like a Statesman!.

Then came the Clntons, need I say ANYTHING, except, Gosh, wasn't Bush Presidential?

Then just when you thought that blow jobs in the White House was the rock bottom, comes "W" with Enron, 9/11, Afghanistanian Opium Crop War, Iraq let's kick their ass for Israel and the general ability to provide comedians with video clips to air of his bizarre syntax with everyone universally agreeing that he is somewhat impaired mentally.

Now comes Obama and you expect him to be any different? He won't even show his birth certificate and if he didn't want rights to that Senate seat and wasn't fully informed, then Cynthia McKinney won the election.

Yes, Obama is going to make "W" Bush look good. I think it is in the oath of office somewhere.

You betcha!

You need to strengthen your position by dusting off the bromide "the Constitution is not a suicide pact!"

That way, everyone would be forced to splutter, as illumination dawns upon their looney visages, "Goddamn. I'd never thought if it that way."

Is it the job of the United States to restrain foreign countries?

If Israel wants to spend the next million years fighting with its neighbors, who cares? Let them do it on their own dime, without the help of Uncle Sam, and watch how quickly Israel falls from its pedestal in the United States. Why should the citizens of the United States and the Government that represents them care either way about how foreign countries settle disputes with their neighbors?