BIN LADEN DETERMINED TO STRIKE WITHIN US

You apologists are pathetic. Saying “9/11 only happened once” is the lamest defense I’ve ever heard.

Almost all US presidents have kept America safe from domestic attacks. George W. Bush was not one of them.

If Cheney’s that concerned about terror being perpetrated on our citizens, why the fuck didn’t he release every last person in prison for personal-use drug possession and leave the real crooks (murderers, child molesters, Madoffs, etc) in? His logic is as skewed as his smirk.

Fuck Cheney and his political ilk. They’ve done nothing but fuck us for eight years; it’s time they sit down and shut the ever-livin’ fuck up.

Sorry…just pisses me off

The Democratic apparatus? Which candidate did the Clintons endorse? Which candidate did Mr. Obama endorse?

Stop digging, Mr. Tea.

“THIS week is bringing a flurry of articles along the general theme of “is the presidency of Barack Obama doomed?” There are a few reasons to ignore them. For example, here is Victor Davis Hanson (pictured) in National Review, today, in a post that’s making the blogospheric rounds:
We are quite literally after two weeks teetering on an Obama implosion—and with no Dick Morris to bail him out—brought on by messianic delusions of grandeur, hubris, and a strange naivete that soaring rhetoric and a multiracial profile can add requisite cover to good old-fashioned Chicago politicking.

Here’s Victor Davis Hanson in National Review, September 2008:

No Northern Democratic liberal like Obama has won the presidency in a half-century…The new Obama probably will recover from his temporary setback in the polls. But right now his problem is that disappointed independent voters are catching on that this saintly savior is all too human.

Here’s Victor David Hanson in National Review, March 2008:

Barack Obama is on his way to a McGovern candidacy.

Here’s Victor Davis Hanson in National Review, March 2008 (again):

Obama is crashing in all the polls, especially against McCain, against whom he doesn’t stack up well, given McCain’s heroic narrative, the upswing in Iraq, and the past distance between McCain and the Bush administration.

Predicting a president’s doom is a high-risk game. Or it would be, if pundits were held as accountable as, say, cabinet nominees.”

just so we understand this comment, what in your opinion is the purpose of a primary election?

LOL

Given?

You mean how the Democratic party backed the winner of the Connecticut Democratic primary for Senator? Get out the pitchforks! Next thing you know you’re going to tell me that the Democratic party backed Obama!

No, it’s not. He’s President of the Senate but this doesn’t make him part of the legislative branch. Jay, I realize you aren’t a fan of books or scholars, but this is not a negotiable point. The Veep is part of the executive branch with rare powers in the legislative branch. This doesn’t magically make him a member of the legislative branch.

Please google “LBJ locked out of Senate” and educate yourself on this.

“It really is obvious that the Founding Fathers didn’t give the vice-presidency much thought.”

Wrong again. Just because they didn’t make the Veep much of a powerful position doesn’t mean they didn’t think it through. This is a feature, not a bug. But again, it’s cute to see a mental midget like yourself actually second-guess the Founding Fathers.

Jaim, amazingly, gets something almost right. The duties of the vice president, are best defined by the words of John McCain: the vice president has only two duties: to break a tie vote in the Senate and to inquire daily about the health of the president. Since then, one more duty has been added: overseeing the space program.

Everything else the veep does is done by the grace of their president, who decides what duties to delegate to him — if any. Gore was given environmental policy and governmental reform. Cheney was given a hefty role in national security.

Cheney did bring up a fascinating point, though: the only actual power of the vice president is strictly legislative in nature, and spelled out in the Constitution in the Article that governs the legislative branch. It really is obvious that the Founding Fathers didn’t give the vice-presidency much thought. Hell, they initially wanted it to be filled by the loser of the election. Can you imagine Al Gore as Bush’s veep? Or, if you prefer, McCain’s as Obama’s?

Strike that last one. That’s one’s all too believable.

And what about those Northeastern Republicans? Obama just picked one for Commerce Secretary.

Sorry, Oliver, I don’t live and die by polls. My principles aren’t governed by popularity or acceptance. I occasionally give up a fight (like the centuries-old tradition of presidents retiring quietly, with J. Q. Adams and Taft being exceptions), and reconsider positions, but I don’t subsume my opinions to the majority.

J.

The Veep serves as an assistant to the POTUS. He breaks ties in the Senate, but he is not in the legislative branch. He is purely a functionary of the executive branch. Perhaps most importantly, he’s second in line if the POTUS dies or is similarly incapacitated.

Quayle was an idiot, but he understood his Constitutional mandate. For the most part, the Veep has very little power under the Constitution with the huge exception of the death of the POTUS.

Al Gore started the trend of Veeps being highly visible and pushing their own initiatives. This doesn’t strike me as a bad thing, but they don’t have any Constitutional mandate to “make it so” other than making speeches and working behind the scenes with Congressional allies and, of course, the president. Of course, historically the POTUS and the Veep have been enemies and/or rivals more often than not. Again, Clinton and Gore set a standard for a close working relationship that didn’t really exist throughout the 20th century. (Kennedy and LBJ hated each other. Hell, even FDR and Truman didn’t really get along.)

Why? Because the same people who yelled so loud when Mr. Carter spoke up are now staring off into the air.

ROFLMAO. And there we have it. Jay Tea cannot check his facts because, well, the internet is software and he’s a hardware guy.

Fantastic. Good to know. And here I thought it was because you were a lazy ass.

Dennis, would you like to elaborate on this comment?

I’ve built and re-built literally dozens of computers, from the ground up. But when I was at Wizbang, there was a stretch where I “broke” the main page at least once a week. In this case, I confused what I posted as a comment here, what I posted as a comment elsewhere, and what I was writing in an article of my own.

(shrug) I did it. I wish I didn’t, but I did. Not the first time I’ve made a mistake, far from the last. I’ll just have to be a bit more careful when I’m citing myself.

J.

And you consider your mouse and/or keyboard pieces of software?

Wait. What standard? You wrote:

FEMA was never intended to be a first-response agency. In crises, the best people to manage the situation are those who are already on the scene and know the area best — the local officials. If city and town officials are overwhelmed, then it becomes the responsibility of the county and state. If they get overwhelmed the federal government takes the lead. But that violates the Katrina standard.

WTF is “The Katrina Standard” in your mind? FEMA’s response to Katrina was a complete disaster in itself. That’s why people were blaming FEMA. Local and state authorities were overwhelmed, turned to FEMA and FEMA dropped the ball. That’s exactly why Bush took heat for its response.

That isn’t what’s happening here. FEMA hasn’t reached all places in the state yet but it’s on the ground and no one is really complaining about its response. Indeed, they’re praising it.

So what standard are you rejecting? The standard by which FEMA gets the blame if FEMA fucks up?

Um, okay.