Thursday, October 23, 2008

Short history of Barack Obama...



...by 'Spill favorite Jeffrey Lewis

7 comments:

ejaydee said...

Hey there Steenbeck, I came homer today to find my absentee ballot had arrived. Maybe I should vote for a real socialist and check Roger Calero's box. It seems like the wise thing to do.

Blimpy said...

Jeffrey Lewis rules, but the politics are still dodgy: the changes will be minimal when Obama gets in - it's short sighted to think otherwise.

ejaydee said...

That may be possible Blimpy, but there didn't seem to be that much difference between Gore and Bush in 2000, and things have definitely been worse since then. Of course Obama won't make unicorns appear, but he's a better bet in my opinion. Or I could just vote for Roger Calero. Now that would be change!

steenbeck said...

I'm personally going to write GDub in for a 3rd term, because things are so bad now that I don't think we should change horses in mid-stream.

We're drowning in dodgy politics, Blimpy, which were you thinking about specifically?

I agree with EJD. Normally I'm very cynical about politics, but there can be no question that the last 8 yrs have been unprecedentedly disastrous. And I know Obama's not perfect, I'm sure I'll be disappointed, but I feel like he's honorable and intelligent and curious about the world, and I do have high hopes for him. I do believe he'll bring about a change.

I also can't stress enough how frightened I am of Sarah Palin and of the people she appeals to. THey are racist, brutal, ignorant and proud of it.

nilpferd said...

I can sympathise with you there Steenbeck, and I also think Obama will be considerably different to McCain. The very fact that Obama has publically stated he will speak with Ahmadinejad is quite amazing- considering the potential (fully realised) for misuse of that statement by the G.O.P. Nonetheless, he took a stand on Iraq, where a more cautious candidate would have hedged his bets. My friend in the US army says every soldier with a brain is pro-Obama- only the macho kids are for McCain.
Equally, Obama has a long history of civil rights work and there is no reason to suppose he will suddenly start to ignore inequality when in office. He will have a lot of goodwill, both internally and externally, he's already shown good cross party influence, and may be able to generate a lot of momentum early on if he gets a good team sorted. The big problem I see is that the disaster left behind by Dubya will consume all his energies, and he may not be able to do any more than clean up the mess in his first term. If the economy is still languishing in four years, a smart Rep. candidate could turn this against him.
You just have to cringe though with the Palin-McCain show- McCain, answering the woman who said "Obama is an Arab", with the sentence "no, maam- he's a fine upstanding man". Way to make friends in the middle east, John.

steenbeck said...

You're right, Nilpferd, whoever is elected is going to have such a mess to clean up. I guess that's Bush's legacy.
On the Daily Show they did a good piece on that No,-ma'am,-he's-not-an-Arab-moment.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=188474&title=an-arab-family-man

ToffeeBoy said...

@ steenbeck - thanks for the link - great stuff. I know the polls can get it horribly wrong but it looks very encouraging for Obama - please don't let us down!!!