Quote:BarnacleBill said:I'd like to see Gingrich run in 2012.He'd lose but he is very smart and he would raise some great points.His oration skills rival Obama's.
Quote:Real: well. now that he's picking the next supreme court justice were bound for some real entertaining rhetoric in the next while...
Quote:Los Angeles Times: "The GOP: divorced from reality" by Bill Maher...Look, I get it, "real America." After an eight-year run of controlling the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court, this latest election has you feeling like a rejected husband. You've come home to find your things out on the front lawn -- or at least more things than you usually keep out on the front lawn. You're not ready to let go, but the country you love is moving on. And now you want to call it a whore and key its car.That's what you are, the bitter divorced guy whose country has left him -- obsessing over it, haranguing it, blubbering one minute about how much you love it and vowing the next that if you cannot have it, nobody will.But it's been almost 100 days, and your country is not coming back to you. She's found somebody new. And it's a black guy.The healthy thing to do is to just get past it and learn to cherish the memories. You'll always have New Orleans and Abu Ghraib.And if today's conservatives are insulted by this, because they feel they're better than the people who have the microphone in their party, then I say to them what I would say to moderate Muslims: Denounce your radicals. To paraphrase George W. Bush, either you're with them or you're embarrassed by them.The thing that you people out of power have to remember is that the people in power are not secretly plotting against you. They don't need to. They already beat you in public.
Quote:Maclean's: "What Obama’s hesitation means for [Canadian prime minister Stephen] Harper"...One hundred days into his presidency — a landmark that will pass while this issue of Maclean’s is on newsstands — it’s easier to measure what Barack Obama won’t do, or what he hesitates to do, than to list all he has done. He’s been busy. But his hesitations may wind up mattering more than his bold actions.Obama’s is already a consequential presidency. By moving to close the Guantánamo Bay prison and abandoning torture he’s shown he’s no George W. Bush. By embracing Europe, tolerating Hugo Chávez and trying to thaw relations with Cuba and Iran, he has shown the world a more conciliatory face. And by hammering open the spending taps, responding to a crisis of easy private money by inaugurating an era of easy public money, he has launched a thousand megaprojects.There’s a lot to admire in each of those moves, but they have something in common. Together they form a politics of plenty: they are not particularly concerned with counting costs. Obama doesn’t like to choose among nations. He doesn’t like to choose among government projects.I mean no criticism of his decision to forswear torture, which to me is simple justice and long overdue. But it can’t be counted a bold strategy, because torture doesn’t exactly have a lot of friends.What it did have, for years, was practitioners in secret prisons around the world, and legal theorists and political enablers in Washington. What would be bold would be to investigate and prosecute them. But Obama has been extraordinarily reluctant to prosecute either torture’s practitioners or enablers. That would be divisive. And as we move from the list of things Obama has done to the list of things he resists, we see a reluctance to take action that would be both decisive and divisive.This is easy to understand now, but it will be significant over the course of Obama’s presidency. He likes to create winners, not losers. So he has embraced policies that have no fight in them and backed off policies where a fight would be inevitable. He has given up on renegotiating NAFTA. He’s dropped plans to reduce farm subsidies. He wanted to resuscitate an assault-weapons ban that died under George W. Bush, but some in Congress pushed back and he has dropped the idea.This pattern suggests a generous instinct and an aversion to conflict. Neither is fatal in the short term. Both offer a refreshing change from Obama’s predecessor. And because his government spends far more than it asks of Americans, Obama is well-placed to buy a lot of change. But, at best, it leaves open the question of whether he will have it in him to keep pushing when opposition is focused, loud, and well-funded....
Quote:TheZookie007 said:Looking at the possible candidates, I feel he is bound to go for a two-fer: a Hispanic woman. How does Justice Sonia Sotomoyar sound?
Quote:Politico: "For Obama, hipness is what it is"During his first 100 days as president of the United States, Barack Obama revealed how different he is from all the white men who preceded him in the Oval Office, and the differences run deeper — in substance and style — than the color of his skin.Barack Hussein Obama is the nation’s first hip president.This, of course, is subject to debate. But watch him walk. Listen to him talk. See the body language, the expressions, the clothes. He’s got attitude, rhythm, a sense of humor, contemporary tastes.This much is clear: Whether dealing with the Wall Street mess, shifting troops from Iraq to Afghanistan or fumbling to fill his Cabinet, Obama leans heavily on personal panache to push political policies. Truth be told, his style is rooted in something elusive and hard to define. Pure and simple, it’s hip.“Being hip is being able to navigate your environment and others’ environments,” like the way Obama traverses racial boundaries, said John Leland, author of the definitive book Hip: The History.“Obama has this awareness that other presidents haven’t had. He’s white, and he’s black. He’s an elitist, and he’s regular folk. He’s not pinned down to a perspective.”Young is to hip as old is to fogey — an essential characteristic. Obama has modern instincts and attitudes that appeal to younger people, and more than any other president in recent memory, that makes him a role model. He is green, open, athletic, tech-savvy, healthy. And his hip image certainly isn’t hurt by his wife, who is so obviously cool — setting trends (Sleeveless! Tending her own garden!), confidently mingling with superstars, gracing magazine covers coast to coast.Consider how, during the campaign, Obama used his personality — the smile, the jaunty stride and the hip-hop verbiage — to disarm critics, charm supporters and persuade fence sitters to elect him president. In an against-the-odds campaign, Obama never lost his poise as he forged a rapport with a new generation of voters while keeping old heads on his team. He could go professorial on the need for health care reform or describe the minutiae of Middle East politics. Still, he begged to bring his BlackBerry into the Oval Office, a signal that he intends to remain in touch with the 21st century. Very hip!Once he settled into the White House, the hip parade didn’t subside. Early guests included pop artists Stevie Wonder (a campaign supporter), Alicia Keys, Will.i.am and Sheryl Crow — but also Sweet Honey in the Rock, a group of socially and politically active a capella singers with an indie, underground vibe.Obama strutted onto Jay Leno’s stage and plopped down on the couch, making him the first sitting president to do that. He unveiled his March Madness basketball bracket from the Oval Office. And speaking of basketball, who missed the sight of POTUS dressed in all black, sitting courtside at a Bulls-Wizards game with a cup of beer and high-fiving a trash-talking fan? How hip was that?!It’s so hip that [students] in Albany, N.Y., coined a term for it: “Baracking.” And it doesn’t stop there. Those in the know at Albany High greet each other by saying: “What’s up, my Obama?” and they respond to a sneeze with “Barack you.” Misbehavior is peer-corrected with the admonition, “Barack’s in the White House,” which translates, “Show some respect.”...John F. Kennedy understood the nexus of Hollywood glam and Washington power, but he wasn’t a hipster. Bill Clinton looked good in Ray-Bans and did a nice turn with the saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show, but in his heart of hearts, Ol’ Bubba was a country boy from the Ozarks with a need-filled, wonky core — not hip....“Hipness is what it is! And sometimes hipness is what it ain’t,” goes the famous song by Tower of Power. “There’s one thing you should know. What’s hip today might become passé.”
Quote:notty: Okey dokey, Politico. Whatever you say. Doesn't take a lot to appear "hip" (wtf?) after a series of old white guys.
Quote:In any case, there's a saying about opinions, and I think we all know it.
Quote:TheZookie007 said:Yep, the saying is, "My opinion is right, and all of yours are wrong"