Pangloss

Just to be clear, as I said above, that phrase is not from "2001: A Space Odyssey", directed by Stanley Kubrick, which came out in 1968. It's from "2010: The Year We Make Contact", directed by Peter Hyams, which came out in 1984. It's kinda like the way Lucas appended "Episode IV: A New Hope" to the wall crawl at the beginning of Star Wars after Empire came out. Memory is a funny thing.

Well I guess I misunderstood, then, but it seems like you're harping over a pretty minor point. I don't think it's unreasonable to say "Gitmo was closed" -- that's the effect, even if it's not immediate. It's not as if we're going to be sending anyone else there, and the only reason there's anybody there right now is because they're being cautious in their dispensation. Why does that translate to "not closed" in your mind, on anything other than a technical level?

Er, haven't we been doing this for several months now? Not that I disagree, but I think it's just a continuation of existing drone-based strike operations. In what was would this be significant? Is the implication of this comment that he's not capable of such plans on his own, or that he wouldn't do them for ideological reasons? Because either is wrong, IMO.

Please don't tell me you're going to act like the right-wing bloggers out there and remind us daily for the next 363 days that Gitmo hasn't been closed yet. I don't understand why anyone would assume that this would happen overnight, but the sheer idiocy of the far left is not an accurate reflection on the actions of the Obama administration, any more than the sheer idiocy of the far right was an accurate reflection on the actions of the Bush administration. You didn't tolerate that sort of behavior from the left then, and I assume you won't tolerate it from the right now. If you do you'll be letting me down, as well as many others here. Nit-picking aside, the difference between this and "mission accomplished" (which is your analogy, so you have only yourself to blame for its injection into this subject) is that the case of each detainee will be reviewed for potential prosecution in American court. Now you can ridicule that proposition all you want, and talk about how that will fail, but until it actually does all you're doing is predicting failure. Do you feel that's a good way to handle the current political environment -- ridicule and failure prediction? Well, I have two words for you: Mission accomplished.

I disagree, I think THAT kind of closing of Gitmo would have been immediately shutting the doors and setting all of the prisoners free. He did not do that, ParanoiA.

No, in fact I think President Obama (I enjoyed typing that) got his first taste of that today, though he appeared to emerge from the minor fight unscathed and successful. He pushed hard on the stimulus bill, meeting with Republicans at the White House, but at first they griped about not being included. Then later in the afternoon some compromises were suggested related to tax cuts for small business, and progress appeared to be made towards an agreement. Minority Leader McConnell made an interesting statement (not in the article below) along the lines of "we'd rather compromise on bipartisanship than fail on partisanship", or words to that effect. Interesting. http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-economy24-2009jan24,0,1583282.story

Almost makes one feel sorry for the far right.

My report card, based on the categories listed in the Wikipedia. Domestic Policy =========== Domestic Security: B-/C+ + Re-forming all domestic security through the new cabinet-level DHS makes sense both economically and in terms of information management. Critics have blasted the old way, revolving around a multi-agency but conflicted-interest Director of Central Intelligence for decades, and this may ultimately prove to be the single most significant security achievement of the Bush administration. - Attempting other security overhauls that were badly needed but poorly understood, debated, written, and/or implemented. Patriot Act, FISA mismanagement, domestic wiretapping, all fall under this category, which is generally a failure, but not enough to drag the grade down any farther than indicated above. + Credit for no attacks (sure sure, other factors are responsible, but you every Al Qaeda put away was one less opportunity, and even if replacements were created they had to be trained and enabled with money that had to be re-earned). Diversity and Civil Rights: C +/- Faith-based initiatives. I give him credit for exploring the idea, but some of them failed. I don't have a problem with the concept and I think it makes sense so long as it is appropriate and monitored. - Gay rights. Come on, it's the 21st century for pete's sake. He does get some credit for appointing gays to administration positions. + Racial diversity. Gotta give him credit here for appointing minorities to key administration positions (Rice, Powell, Gonzales) Science: D- - Stem cell research. + Space exploration. Only thing saving him from failure here. - Global warming (as it pertains to science funding). Applying politics to NSF funding and public relations was a disaster. I can almost give him credit for skepticism, except for the fact that the motivation was clearly not honest scientific skepticism, but rather a blatant ideological preference. + Pollution cleanups, better forestry, and the treehuggers can kiss my lilly white ass. But a relatively minor plus. +/- Dodging the flawed Kyoto treaty. It was a bad treaty, though tactically it might have been better to sign it, so it's a wash. + ANWR drilling. Needs to happen, but the amount is such that it doesn't really account for much of a plus here. Education: A + No Child Left Behind. Yup, a plus. It's not as if Democrats are going to chuck it out the window, folks -- they consider its only flaw to be lack of funding. And they're right, and it will continue, as should be. Credit where it's due. Economy: D+ Up until a few months ago I'd have given him a great score here, but holy cow. Let's get specific, though: + Tax cuts. Damn right. + War on poverty. Rate drops from 34.6% to 12.4%. - Real GDP up 2.5%. Acceptable but not great, and who knows how that it's crashing again. Can't call this a plus -- it's gotta be a minus. - Budget deficits. When they were not necessary. Dammit. This minus outweights most of the pluses. + Free trade. Progress towards more FTAs. Health Care: F - He completely failed to even start to realistically address the problems with health care in this country. Period. Social Security: F - Privatization? Come on. Get real. Misci: F - Ban on partial-birth abortion. GTF out of the doctor's office. Yeesh. - Terri Schiavo. (Mostly congress, but Bush gets a piece of the blame here too.) + Amber Alert system. - Adam Walsh Act (national database for registered sex offenders) - Hurricane Katrina handling. All hurricanes are disasters, but this one was much more of one than it needed to be. + Supreme Court picks. Excellent, but not enough to save this category from a failing grade. Overall Domestic Policy Grade: C-/D+ I'll do foreign policy separately. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedBush Foreign Policy Report Card ======================== Afghanistan: B I think this has been well-handled in general, but has suffered mainly because it could have used the resources we spent in Iraq. Iraq: F Bad decision, poorly handled. This one decision alone is almost enough for me to fail the entire presidency. Surge almost saves this category from a failing grade, but not quite. We'll see what happens in the long run -- I could amend this to a D ten years from now. Middle East: F - I dunno, maybe it's not possible for anybody to get a passing grade here. But aside from the general lack of progress in Israel, there's also poor progress with Syria, Egypt, and others, and negative progress with Iran and with allies like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. + Libya. I guess that's something. Africa: B + AIDS funding and committing a larger percentage of GDP to helping there, which makes a lot of sense and not just on humanitarian grounds. - Darfur. Caribbean/South America: D - Nobody seems to care about Haiti. - South America is a rotting cesspool of anti-Americanism -- nice work there. Europe: D - This is mainly due to Iraq, but the point is he blew it with all our allies over there. It may not be entirely fair, but it was his responsibility. Overall Foreign Policy Grade: F Overall administration grade: D To be honest I'm a little surprised I arrived at such a low grade. But when I added it all up and honestly reviewed my feelings, I could just barely pass the guy at all. There are quite a lot of individual things I can point at and say "that was good", but the bad things so outweigh them that I just can't go any higher. But I am a bit surprised at the result.

Very funny bit from the BBC, with a cute girl who happens to be the same age as the Mac she's comparing with a modern PC. Watch how long it takes the Windows machine to boot. (hehe) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7846575.stm

Any time. That was a great piece, wasn't it? BTW, did you happen to catch the NBC News piece today with the open letter from Jenna and Barbara Bush to the two Obama girls? It was so touching that an enterprising NBC reporter called the Bush daughters on the phone and got them to narrate the letter, which they then set it to a lovely video. They have it online here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28759027/ (It's about 3 minutes long.) Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Yes, I think that's the secret -- listening. Which I'm sure means emotional control as well. I wish I could do it a tenth as well. Well put.

And yet in spite of pursuing that approach in public service for 20 over years, the man was just elected President of the United States of America with the largest vote tally in history. Sounds like he's pleasing quite a lot of people.

I was just watching Frontline's "Dreams of Obama" and I was struck by one of the segments which talked about his tenure at Harvard Law Review. He was apparently elected because of conservatives "crossing over" to vote for him, and he apparently got ten times as much criticism from the left as from the right during his time as President of the journal. I realize that doesn't prove anything with regard to his presidency, but it certainly suggests that he'll be the moderate consensus builder that he's been promising, doesn't it? I know I kinda gloat about the anger and frustration I'm predicting that the far left is going to see during this administration, but it sure seems more likely every day. What do you all think about the idea of Obama as consensus-builder? Can he do it? The episode of Frontline can be watched online here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/dreamsofobama/view/

I've started a sticky thread on the Politics board for political humor, and we will be moving politic jokes and humor over there. Please post any political humor in that thread from now on. Thanks. http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=37962

Use this thread to post jokes and humor related to politics and political events. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedHere's one to help us get started:

Yes, I agree. I presume you also condemn the use of "human shields" or hiding behind civilians, but still feel those positions should not have been bombed. Before we move on I think Bombus deserves credit for having the courage to defend and support his position and the broad-mindedness to be reasonable about many details upon which we all agree. Being in opposition to popular positions on a board is never easy, but there wouldn't be a vigorous debate without it. Let's give him an SFN pat on the back for that.

Yeah that's what Manuel Noriega's lawyers said. At any rate, it's a legally underfined (or underdefined) area. Which means that if it doesn't have that authority yet then it's about to acquire it. Welcome to the new reality. Again, if you want to shape policy, win an election.

My answer to your question is "the laws that pertain to citizens of the US." That's right, they're not citizens, but we're applying citizen-style due process to them anyway. Not to be rude, but you might as well be complaining that the sky is blue. If you want a different answer to be applied then I suggest you convince more conservatives not to mope and whine about the Republican candidates when the next election comes around.

I think I'm going to suggest over on the mod board that we limit this thread to "report cards" only. It just feels too much like hitting people over their opinions to allow replies to people's "report cards" -- let's let people have their say in this thread without rebuke. What do you all think?

Well I disagree with Sisyphus and iNow on gun ownership being an important part of liberal politics. It's not a "wedge issue from the right", it's an ideological cornerstone. I do agree that it's not being pursued at the moment due to the plethora of more important issues on the table. That doesn't mean it's important to every liberal, of course. But the left is much better organized and encompassing when it comes to keeping issues on the agenda and maintaining unity amongst disparate groups that ostensibly have nothing to do with liberalism or specific issues. Mothers Against Drunk Driving has a position on global warming, for example, and it seems like every day I get a position statement from the Center for Inquiry on equal pay for minorities or gay marriage or whatnot. This sort of thing happens on both sides of the political "aisle". But no, that doesn't mean that all liberals are in favor of gun control. I'm sure Gloria Steinem would have you believe differently (gun control being very important to the advancement of women somehow, you see), but she doesn't speak for everyone (or really even all that many).

I think he's being smart about it, too. He's not just shuffling these people off to another prison, or worse, assuming them all to be innocent and releasing them*. Each case will be thoroughly examined for potential for prosecution in a normal court of law, and those cases which are supported by evidence and potential for conviction will be brought before a judge. You know, kinda like things are supposed to go? *(Gee, guess Bill Ayers wasn't all that influential after all -- did you catch that, Rush Limbaugh?)

Interesting bit today from the news: Apparently Obama's choice for CIA head declined to call Waterboarding "torture". He said it won't happen on his watch, nor will we torture, but he stopped short of agreeing with Justice nominee Eric Holder in actually declaring Waterboarding to be torture. http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE50L63F20090122 I don't suppose it really matters a whole lot -- the opinions of individuals should not be a determining factor in whether these tactics are used. It should be decided by careful, thoughtful, objective, high level examination of all the facts, then codified and enforced.

No, I was acknowledging your point, which is neither "surrendering" nor was it a backhanded smack. You made a valid point and I felt I owed you an acknowledgment rather than silence. For what it's worth, I don't think the Bush administration set out to "torture" per se, I think that, as was the case with many aspects of this administration, they just pushed the line too far, and they listened to the wrong advice along the way. But when people asked him if he agreed with torture and he said that torture was wrong, he wasn't lying. The media made a big deal about how Obama's inaugural was critical of Bush, but I don't think either Obama or Bush saw it that way. Mistakes were made. That's it, end of story. It doesn't sell books, but it is the way the world works. (Usually.)

Wow, how did this old thing get bumped? Now I have to review a two-year-old thread to remember what positions I took then, eh? Pfft, forget that. In response to tvp45, much of that is true, but I've never heard of Hoover not taking the oath. Do you have a source for that? In fact supposedly Hoover reportedly stumbled when Taft gave him the oath, as was reported a good bit yesterday after the same thing happened with Obama and Roberts. The oath of office for President is required by Article 2, Section 1, Clause 8 of the Constitution, which specifies the words that must be spoken. Are you perhaps referring to the substitution of the word "affirm" instead of "swear"? Seems kind of a silly thing to parse -- Hoover had his hand on his family Bible, open to Proverbs 29:18, "Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keeps the law, happy is he." What would you call that? (source) Those words are traditionally modified by the inclusion of the name and "so help me god" at the end (sorry wall-of-separation libbies), used by all presidents since (and including) FDR. But I think that's about as far as it goes in terms of straying from the beaten path. Incidentally, so concerned was the Obama administration about the flub that they had him take the oath again tonight in the Map Room. Amusing. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/21/AR2009012103685.html?hpid=topnews

Ok, thanks for the replies.

Okay. And I acknowledge the accuracy of this.