who would you rather have as president right now?

[Mechaman]

Obama.

I would not trust those who have spent their lives in the profession of warfare (ie raping other nations' sovereignty) to lead the nation. Frankly this blind worship of the state's pawns is getting sickening.

[Хahar 🤔]

biden, who wanted to partition iraq three years ago

Yes, that was a good idea. Iraq should've never even been created.

Invading and partitioning a country... wow, I'm sure that'll look REALLY good *rolls eyes*

Do you know anything at all about the Middle East?

A good way of seing how artificial a country's boundaries are is to see how much of it is straight.

WYOMING IS AN ARTIFICIAL STATE

Basically. Some of the states there were designed solely to give extra GOP votes.

[Swing Voter]

Basically. Some of the states there were designed solely to give extra GOP votes.

You don't honestly believe that, do you?

[Хahar 🤔]

Basically. Some of the states there were designed solely to give extra GOP votes.

You don't honestly believe that, do you?

That was why the Dakotas were admitted separately.

[Swing Voter]

Basically. Some of the states there were designed solely to give extra GOP votes.

You don't honestly believe that, do you?

That was why the Dakotas were admitted separately.

That is a rather opinionated response. The Dakotas split parties in each of their first two national elections. The Mountain West in that era was dominated by William Jennings Bryan and the Populist Party had modest success. I would hope you could come up with a better argument to back your absurd assertion.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Gates

[Swing Voter]

Gates

Care to explain your response? I'm interested in seeing why people would prefer a man they know barely anything about to a sitting President.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Gates

Care to explain your response? I'm interested in seeing why people would prefer a man they know barely anything about to a sitting President.

First off, welcome to the Forum.

I know far more about Bob Gates than Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ronald Reagan before they became President.

Mr. Gates' bio is more impressive than all of the aforementioned Presidents before they became President...  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gates

I also believe he posesses the maturity and temperment for the job and he's clearly not "partisan" in the bad sense.

That said, I think he would like to retire as SoD and hang out on a beach somewhere.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Basically. Some of the states there were designed solely to give extra GOP votes.

You don't honestly believe that, do you?

From the Divine oracle wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_Territory

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[Torie]

I would go with Gates' opinion, and I strongly suspect it would be Obama, as between whom to pick if one had to choose between the two of them. Gates has a mature mind. He is not a generalist, in the way Obama is. Now Torie is a generalist, come to think of it.

[Swing Voter]

Gates

Care to explain your response? I'm interested in seeing why people would prefer a man they know barely anything about to a sitting President.

First off, welcome to the Forum.

I know far more about Bob Gates than Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ronald Reagan before they became President.

Mr. Gates' bio is more impressive than all of the aforementioned Presidents before they became President...  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gates

I also believe he posesses the maturity and temperment for the job and he's clearly not "partisan" in the bad sense.

That said, I think he would like to retire as SoD and hang out on a beach somewhere.

Thank you, and thank you for providing a more in-depth response. I was unsure of there being any reasons one may have other than dislike for Obama, but your response was decent.

[Swing Voter]

Basically. Some of the states there were designed solely to give extra GOP votes.

You don't honestly believe that, do you?

From the Divine oracle wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_Territory

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I just don't see how that is possible considering the political leanings of the Dakotas at the time circa their admission. Seems to me that they were slightly more favorable to the Democrats.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Gates

Care to explain your response? I'm interested in seeing why people would prefer a man they know barely anything about to a sitting President.

First off, welcome to the Forum.

I know far more about Bob Gates than Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ronald Reagan before they became President.

Mr. Gates' bio is more impressive than all of the aforementioned Presidents before they became President...  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gates

I also believe he posesses the maturity and temperment for the job and he's clearly not "partisan" in the bad sense.

That said, I think he would like to retire as SoD and hang out on a beach somewhere.

Thank you, and thank you for providing a more in-depth response. I was unsure of there being any reasons one may have other than dislike for Obama, but your response was decent.

NP, but I don't dislike Obama........I'm still one of the "somewhat positive" approval ratings posters....lol.

[angus]

this is a no-brainer.

gates would be much better than obama. any day now obama is going to throw up the white flag in afghanistan (like he did with the health care public option)

still like Obama.  Granted, I was totally pissed that he'd pick Biden as running mate, and still have grave reservations about Biden, and I was totally insulted when he decided to give Clinton the job at State, but I did like the choice to keep Gates, as I posted here before.

By the way, did you catch Hillary Clinton’s emotional speech today regarding the recent attacks in Pakistan?  I must say that the snippet I caught was really moving.  I don’t think I’ve ever said anything nice about her on this forum or elsewhere, but what she said was bold, fresh, humanitarian, moving, and concise.  I was generally impressed.  Okay, I’ll come out of the closet.  I was watching MSNBC.  But my choices were Geritol, Jerk, Joy, or Bulldyke.  That is to say, Larry King, Hannity, Supersensationalist Short Attention Span Theater, or Rachel Maddow.  I think I’ll go with raging Bull Dyke if those are my options.  And I don’t feel compelled to make any apologies.  (except perhaps to foreigners who come to my country and comment, as they always do, on the embarrassingly slim options for news coverage during the Prime Time.)  But to my countrymen all I can say is, “well, what would you watch?”

Enough about that.  What I caught went something like this:  “Fuck ‘em.  They’re cowards.  Let ‘em grow a pair.  Let them have the balls to bring their ideas to the democratic arena and put their ideas forward for a proper vote.  If they really believe that women shouldn’t be allowed to go to school or work, let them make their arguments and put the question to The People.  Reckon they’d win?  Probably they know they would not, so they resort to violence.  That’s because they’re all dicks.  Well, actually, they’re pussies, since they can’t muster the courage to settle their scores within the system, so they decided to circumvent it instead.  With violence.  And the irony lies in the fact that they are treating the women like second-class citizens, but they’re the real pussies.  So it’s a shame and an irony, isn’t it.”

Okay, I’m paraphrasing.  You’ll have to look up the real speech elsewhere, but I think I got the gist of it.  And I must say that I was impressed with her.  It was neither imperialistic, like Madelaine Albright’s speeches were, nor was it jingoistic, like Condi’s speech’s so often were.  But it was an appropriate statement of American Statecraft in the wake of a deadly attack on a desperately fragile American alliance.  More measured, even, than Obama's speeches, and certainly moreso than Bush's.  It was decent, and calibrated, yet forceful.  Not unlike the dark, fruity California Zinfandel I sampled tonight.  Self-confident, yet well-trained.

So, I was actually impressed with our Secretary of State tonight.  Which, I guess, is another reason to think that I made the right decision when I voted for Obama.

Not that I don't respect Gates.  Gates is excellent in the job he has, and it's probably a good time to remind that society does best when it resists its collective urge to apply the Peter Principle at every opportunity.  Let Gates be Gates, which is to say, let the man continue to build on his esteemed record of public service.  Gates has made several intelligent moves, don't you think?  There's the limited surge in Afghanistan, the proposal of a large shift in budget priorities in the US Department of Defense budget (including cutting the F-22 Raptor and further development of Future Combat Systems manned vehicles, while increasing funding for programs like the special forces.)  Bush made a wise decision to appoint him, and Obama was wise to keep him.  Not that all of Obama's decisions have been those that I would have made, but this is the sort of delegation that I expect from a president.

For what it's worth, I still prefer Obama over McCain and Hillary, and, as much as it may surprise you, I like him over Ron Paul as well.  No serious regrets that I voted for him.  Not so far...

[opebo]

still like Obama.  Granted, I was totally pissed that he'd pick Biden as running mate, and still have grave reservations about Biden,

What the hell?  How does Joe Biden matter in any little way?  He's VP for gosh sakes - nobody and nothing. 

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Basically. Some of the states there were designed solely to give extra GOP votes.

You don't honestly believe that, do you?

From the Divine oracle wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_Territory

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I just don't see how that is possible considering the political leanings of the Dakotas at the time circa their admission. Seems to me that they were slightly more favorable to the Democrats.

Yes you are right and the GOP advantage was short lived as the Democrats began to win them. But in 1889 ND, SD, MT, ID, and WA were added as well as WY in 1890 to increase GOP power in the Senate and the electoral college. The GOP was considerable a Western Party by then. During the Speakership of Henderson 1899-1903 more then half of the GOP congressmen were from states that were considered Western at the time(Probably anything West of Ohio).

[Rob]

I just don't see how that is possible considering the political leanings of the Dakotas at the time circa their admission. Seems to me that they were slightly more favorable to the Democrats.

The Dakotas were Republican strongholds in the nineteenth century, settled mainly by northern WASPs and German Protestants- the hard core of the GOP. McKinley whipped Bryan in North Dakota in 1896 and 1900. Bryan carried South Dakota in 1896- by a miniscule margin, with support from the depressed Black Hills. But McKinley kicked his ass in 1900, and South Dakota voted continuously Republican from that election through 1928.

[CatoMinor]

Gates

[Coburn In 2012]

this is a no-brainer.

gates would be much better than obama. any day now obama is going to throw up the white flag in afghanistan (like he did with the health care public option)

I am glad at least one red avatar here makes sense.  I don't know if gates is all that good but a trained chimp could do a better job than obama. 

Hmmm.  come to think of it maybe thats the problem.  The chimp hasn't been trained!  LOLOLOLOLOL

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

The one who isn't a terrorist (Iran-contra scandal).