Is being a "shrill bitch" better or worse than being a dick?

Is being a "dick" better than being a "pussy", even if you are a "hard left" dick?

Is there something called a "soft right" dick?

I find the whole Obama is (worse than) Bush meme a little idiotic and shortsighted. Is he torturing? Is he lying us into war? Is he denying climate change? I dunno, maybe I'm missing something. -- homeruk

Don't you find it rather disconcerting that you don't know that a President you support (and voted for?) is not breaking both domestic and international law or lying us into war? Precisely what has Obama done which makes him any different than McCain?

Frankly, when I voted for Obama, I thought I was voting for a President who I knew would obey the law. If I wanted to vote for someone who I didn't trust, I would have voted for another candidate, not Obama.

Since his FISA flop last year, Obama has made a string of decisions which are contrary to both his own stated positions and the positions of most liberals. He's lied repeatedly about his position on several issues.

When he advocated for the reinstatement of Holy Joe to the good graces of the Democratic caucus, I felt as though he had merely misread the position of his supporters. Now, I know that he was merely positioning that piece of excrement to assist in implementing his real agenda - which is no where near the agenda he was elected as supporting.

He needs to be impeached and he needs to be impeached soon.

When Obama threw his long time friend and mentor, the Reverend Wright, into the dumpster, I think a lot of us thought it was an act of necessary political expediency, and not worth serious analysis - getting the Right Wing out of the drivers seat was the overwhelming goal.

It wasn't only Rev Wright that got thrown into the dumpster by Obama. It was also Howard Dean and Jimmy Carter and probably others we don't even know about. Recall that Jimmy Carter wasn't allowed to speak at the Dem Convention probably because he would anger some Jewish voters. As for Dean, I am not sure why he wasn't given any position in the Obama administration but suspect this had a lot to do with ill feelings between Dean and Emanuel regarding Dean's 50 state strategy.

But unlike you I saw these events as symptoms of something about Obama that I didn't quite like.

Obviously there were more valid reasons to dump the Rev Wright when he did than say Howard Dean but you can also view this as taking the politically expedient path which is how we can also describe many of these horrible Bush supporting decision Obama has taken too.

Sir, I thinkt hats why they call the internets an "interactive" medium. President Obama could catch a few hints...?

I actually agree with Glenn almost 100% and still think he's a shrill, naggy bitch. What kind of pundit sits around baiting and then arguing with his own readers? Sheesh.

Homeruk: "- I find the whole Obama is (worse than) Bush meme a little idiotic and shortsighted. Is he torturing? Is he lying us into war? Is he denying climate change? I dunno, maybe I'm missing something."

First, nobody is saying that he is *worse* than Bush, he has still about 150 000 civilian deaths to go for that. But he is still torturing, in Bangram and elsewhere. Have you seen any lists of what secret CIA facilities have been shut down? Of what happened to the people there? About "renditions"? Maybe I have missed something? He is lying to us about war, or at least keeping silent. Have you seen any real strategic plan for the Af/Pak war? Complete with Cost/benefit analysis? Have you seen anyone try to set down a structural plan for how to re-assemble the individual rights of people? Habeas Corpus?

Greenwald: You could do much worse than interview Phil Carter (previously at Intel Dump) about these things. He must be screaming in his office every day now. (tell him fnord says hi)

V interesting and uncomfortable reading. Thanks. Yup, can't quite figure out why that sort of violent force feeding isn't torture. Is it is the field manual - as I recall those were the parameters that were used when saying we don't torture?

I think calling the Brookings Institution "neoconservative" is being disingenuous.

Ever heard of Ken Pollack and Michael O'Hanlon, the two leading advocates for the invasion and ongoing occupation of Iraq? Ever heard of Haim Saban, who funds Pollack and other Brookings "scholars", who told the NYT: "I'm a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel . . . . On the issues of security and terrorism I am a total hawk." Ever heard of Ben Wittes, who has devoted himself for years to the creation of national security courts to allow preventive detention.

If "neocon" doesn't apply to that, what does it take?

There was a huge newsdump last week, with the Washington Post reporting that President Obama intends to circumvent Congress and reassert indefinite detention authority by executive order....I initially assumed that the administration's move would be along the lines of what Wittes is proposing.

That isn't the case...Wittes told me personally that he thought Obama re-asserting--as Bush did--the inherent authority to detain terrorists suspects indefinitely would be "a disaster."

The Wittes proposal is not likely to make any civil libertarians happy. But unlike the administration's move--if the Post story is accurate--it does propose some meaningful constraints on the indefinite detention power, which up till now we've seen being used arbitrarily except where the courts intervene...

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=06&year=2009&base_name=preventive_detention_by_other

Shortly after Shrub announced his inane GWOT, I predicted that we would become Argentina or Chile complete with our own "disappeared ones" and torture. So it has come to pass. Those countries didn't begin to overcome the long, dark tea time of their souls until they stripped away the layers of secrecy and confronted their actions.

Clearly, we are not yet ready to exit our own long, dark tea time.