The Thailand expat forum for Travel, Lifestyle and Fun.

raycarey

an estimated 40 million people watched obama's acceptance speech.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/30/us...30ratings.html

britmaveric

^ However no one is talking about it, McCain stole the show.

Carnwadrick

He is good at that but it reminding me of something my high school teacher quoted 40 some years ago "we are often unable to tell people what the need to know because they want to know something else" it's hard to tell the truth to people when they crave something else and only a real leader can stand up and say it how it really is..Obama is not a real leader

bkkandrew

How you can possibly state that from your perspective (a Brit in Pattaya) is laughable. But then you are...

Bugs

I don't know if he stole the whole show, but he certainly did steal a lot of the media hype when he made the Palin announcement.

Carnwadrick

Certainly deflated the Dems baloon

sabang

^ The Polls suggest Not.

Bugs

Hard to tell as the Palin pick was made the day after the convention. Obama certainly got the convention bounce, but would his bounce have been less (or maybe more) if McCain had not announced Palin the next day?

Bugs

Looks like one Clinton supporter is so peeved that he has filed a law suite in an attempt to have Obama declared ineligible to run for president on the grounds that he is not a natural born US citizen:

Washington Times - Lawsuit questions Obama's eligibility for office

Quote:

Pennsylvania's former deputy attorney general and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton supporter Philip J. Berg has filed a lawsuit in federal court in Pennsylvania accusing presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama of lying about his U.S. citizenship, which would make him ineligible to be president.

From Berg's website:
Times-Herald: Born in the U.S.A.?

Quote:

A Lafayette Hill attorney filed a lawsuit in federal court Thursday challenging Sen. Barack Obama's claim to United States citizenship. The action seeks to remove the Democratic candidate from the November ballot.

And another from Berg's website explaining who gets to run the blue team if he wins his case:

Quote:

Regulations pertaining to replacement of a Democratic Nominee. In particular, page 19, Section "G" states: G. Filling a Vacancy on the National Ticket: In the event of death, resignation or disability of a nominee of the Party for President or Vice President after the adjournment of the National Convention, the National Chairperson of the Democratic National Committee shall confer with the Democratic leadership of the United States Congress and the Democratic Governors Association and shall report to the Democratic National Committee, which is authorized to fill the vacancy or vacancies.

Boy I bet the Hillary folks would explode if Berg wins and the DNC then picks someone other than Hillary (neither of which is likely to happen).

__________________
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion" - Steven Weinberg

Bugs

An acquaintance and I were talking about politicians and their background issues just last night. How some pretty small/petty things in a generally good persons past can work against them in major ways if they are a politician. And how many of the big time politicians in Americas past have had skeletons in their closet so big that there is no way they would have been able to reach such highs in the world of today (FDR, JFK, maybe even Regan).

This article kind of covers how hard the Obama team seems to be working to keep the Obama image in line with what they want folks to think of as the Obama image. Much of the muck the reporter covers on Obama does not seem to be that big of a deal, I am only mildly concerned over Obama’s past relations with Ayers, the Rezko connection more so, the Auchi connection could be an issue (but what have been revealed so far is not big deal – but the FOIA requests that have not been responded to for months is a bit concerning).

Really you can’t fault a guy for wanting to maintain a solid image and thus limiting/controlling what about their past is revealed.

Obama Should Come Clean On Ayers, Rezko And the Iraqi Billionaire - WSJ.com

Quote:

Team Obama has launched an offensive against WGN, the Chicago Tribune's radio station, for interviewing Stanley Kurtz. Mr. Kurtz is a conservative writer who this week forced the University of Illinois to finally open its records on Sen. Obama's association with William Ayers, the unrepentant 1970s Weather Underground terrorist. ....WGN producer Zack Christenson says the outpouring of negative calls and emails is "unprecedented." He also notes that it is curious -- because "we wanted the Obama campaign's take" on Mr. Kurtz's findings, but the campaign declined to put anyone on air....

Maybe not surprising if Mr. Kurtz's allegations are really over the top - neither campaign can be expected to address allegations made by the real nut jobs on the other side of the asle.

Quote:

Separately, Mr. Obama's lawyers have also demanded that the Justice Department prosecute an organization called the American Issues Project for running an ad about ties between their candidate and Mr. Ayers.

The interesting bit about this (to me) is that it seems the Obama team are contesting the ad based upon the American Issues Project being a nonprofit group that's not suppose to engage in politics as it's main activity:
Fight for Virginians' votes spills over onto the airwaves | HamptonRoads.com | PilotOnline.com

Quote:

Obama's lawyers also have launched a legal challenge, alleging that the Ayers ad violates federal law. The American Issues Project is organized as a nonprofit "social welfare" group that is not allowed to engage in political activity as its primary purpose.

Quote:

..."They're terrified of people poking around Obama's life," one reporter told Gabriel Sherman at the New Republic. "The whole Obama narrative is built around the narrative that Obama and [campaign strategist] David Axelrod built, and, like all stories, it's not entirely true." The stakes are high. If the full story of Mr. Obama's relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright had been revealed before the Iowa caucus, he wouldn't have won.

Not sure the Rev. Wright deal would have sunk him or not, had it broken prior to Iowa.

Quote:

Aides claim Mr. Obama "has taken voluntary transparency steps" that allow "his constituents, the media and his political opponents to fully examine him." In reality, anyone questioning the approved story line is liable to be ignored, misled or even bullied. This isn't what reporters expected when Mr. Obama began campaigning for a "new politics" that would bring honesty and openness to government.

Candidate for change indeed.

Quote:

Walking the rows of media outlets at the Denver convention, I had no trouble finding reporters who complained the campaign was secretive and evasive. Ben Smith of Politico.com has written about Team Obama's "pattern of rarely volunteering information or documents, even when relatively innocuous." Politico asked months ago if Mr. Obama had ever written anything for the Harvard Law Review as a student. The Obama campaign responded narrowly, with a Clintonesque statement that "as the president of the Law Review, Obama didn't write articles, he edited and reviewed them." This month it turned out Mr. Obama had written an article -- but it was published a month before he became president.

I wonder how much volunteering of information or documents team McCain have been? I doubt anyone wants to volunteer anything except what is pertinent to their message. Not volunteering information seems only the wise thing to do. But not volunteering is a whole different thing as opposed withhold or refusing to provide information.

Quote:

Chasing the rest of Mr. Obama's paper trail is often an exercise in frustration. Mr. Obama says his state senate records "could have been thrown out" and he didn't keep a schedule in office. No one appears to have kept a copy of his application for the Illinois Bar. He has released only a single page of medical records, versus 1,000 pages for John McCain.

State senate records - I thought the earlier claims were banging on Obama for his history or voting present in the state senate?

I don't know much about applying for the bar, but why would folks keep the application form?

The medical records seems a bit interesting considering the issue everyone wanted to make about McCain early on not releasing his. Granted the situations for the two are quite different, and I don't know that everyone really needs to know the detailed medical records for every candidate. But it wold be nice to know if the person running for the top job has any serious medical condition or something that could develop into a serious issue over the next four years.

Quote:

In May 2004, the Pentagon's inspector general's office cited "significant and credible evidence" of involvement by Mr. Auchi's companies in the Oil for Food scandal, and in illicit smuggling of weapons to Saddam Hussein's regime. Because of the criminal probe, Mr. Auchi's travel visa to the U.S. was revoked in August 2004, even as Mr. Auchi denied all the allegations. According to prosecutors, in November 2005 Rezko was able to get two government officials from Illinois to appeal to the State Department to get the visa restored. Asked if anyone in his office was involved in such an appeal, Mr. Obama told the Chicago Sun-Times last March, "not that I know of." FOIA requests to the State Department for any documents haven't been responded to for months.

The Obama - Auchi connection is weak at best (at this stage) and even if eventually it is proven that Obama was one of the sentors that asked the State Department to get his visa restored it would lead me to believe Obama had done it as a favor to Rezko more so than because of ties Obama has directly to Auchi.

Quote:

After long delays, Mr. Obama sat with the editorial boards of the Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune in March to answer their questions about his connection to Rezko. He had no recollection of ever meeting Mr. Auchi. He also said he didn't understand a lot about house buying, and gave vague answers to other questions. Since then, he has avoided any further discussion of the Rezko matter.

McCain doesn't know how many houses he ownes and it seems Obama does not know how to buy a house. Should either of these guys be allowed to reside in the White House?

Quote:

Some inquiries could be cleared up if the Obama campaign were forthcoming with key documents. Mr. Obama claims that in buying his house in 2005 he got a low mortgage rate from Northern Trust bank because another bank made a competitive bid for his business, but his campaign won't reveal from which bank. While he has released 94 pages of documents relating to the Rezko sale, they don't include the single most important one -- the settlement statement that shows the complete flow of funds that were part of the house sale. When asked why that last key document isn't being released, the Obama campaign issued a boilerplate statement saying, "we have released documents that reflect every one of the final terms of the senator's purchase of the home." But key data are still being withheld.

I am fairly sure something not quite above board happened in the house deal and with the Rezko's/Obama's. But it's hard to tell if it is a big deal or not without knowing the whole story. What appears to be a concerted effort by Obama to not directly and clearly respond to the issue has to leave one to wonder. Especially when some of the hanging questions seem so simple?
Which other bank offered a competitive mortgage offer?
Why not supply a copy of the settlement statement?

All that being said this bit is also certainly true:

Quote:

All presidential candidates resist full examination of their records.

Carnwadrick

Nice analysis of the report Bugs, others including myself if taking the time may have reported a different slant to the articles but that would have shown our prejudice your analysis was quite fair

Norton

Polls as blogs seem to vary greatly depending on the pollsters and the participants.

Some polls show Obama has 2 to 1 lead, indicating McCain should just give up now.

Boon Mee

Heh...Why BO will win?

Товарищ откровенный MARSHALL ДЭВИС Frank Marshall Davis, Obama’s Communist Mentor


Add to the list of Obama's radical left mentors, Communist party member and sexual pervert. Frank Marshall Davis. “ In his books, Obama admits attending "socialist conferences" and coming into contact with Marxist literature. But he ridicules the charge of being a "hard-core academic Marxist," which was made by his colorful and outspoken 2004 U.S. Senate opponent, Republican Alan Keyes.

However, through Frank Marshall Davis, Obama had an admitted relationship with someone who was publicly identified as a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). The record shows that Obama was in Hawaii from 1971-1979, where, at some point in time, he developed a close relationship, almost like a son, with Davis, listening to his "poetry" and getting advice on his career path. But Obama, in his book, Dreams From My Father, refers to him repeatedly as just "Frank."

The reason is apparent: Davis was a known communist who belonged to a party subservient to the Soviet Union. In fact, the 1951 report of the Commission on Subversive Activities to the Legislature of the Territory of Hawaii identified him as a CPUSA member. What's more, anti-communist congressional committees, including the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), accused Davis of involvement in several communist-front organizations. (AIM) ”Marshall, Bill Ayers, Bernardine Rae Dohrn, Rev. Wright, Rev. Pfleger, and Louis Farrakhan. All professed haters of the United States, and all friends, associates and mentors to Barry Obama.

Curmudgeonly & Skeptical²

__________________
ผมเป็นคนบ้านนอก

sabang

^ Well good, it would be hard to get any grasp of the complexities, diverse ideologies and political philosophies of this complex world if you're stuck in an 'American gothic' painting all your life. The fact that he went on to graduate summa cum laude from Harvard, not to mention become the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review, demonstrates the inteligence and competence of the man.

His inspiring speeches also show a genuine and broad ideological grasp of many issues- a refreshing change to the stale rhetoric and goldfish bowl ideologies of the current Republican party haranguers. Vive' le change America.

__________________
To err is human. To blame someone else is politics.

Boon Mee

^
Heh...ferget 'bout how The War Hero & now The Babe always win?

Norton

Booners, A babe has never won the Presidency or the Vice Presidency so we can put that to rest. As for the "war heroes" too many losers to list. One in recent years comes to mind. George Bush Sr!

Don't over play this one.

Norton

Also have noted McCain supporters are not citing the polls these last few days.

Texpat

This whole hu8rricane faction is unbelievable.
It's all about how the parties spin it.

I wonder how Obama might have reacted under similar circumstances.

I think it's an opportunity for the GOP.

Norton

Could be. Waiting to see how they position it.

Boon Mee

Hope so...

Democrats Root For Hurricane

"It's no secret that Democrats love it when things go wrong. This, though, is a particularly nauseating example. Don Fowler, former Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and Democratic Congressman Don Spratt are caught on video laughing about the fact that a hurricane is about to hit New Orleans, to the political advantage, they suppose, of their party:"

Power Line