Political Hippo Circle Jerk - America, farg YEAH!

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

...and it's easier to prepare for questions from normal people than moderators trying to make headlines.

Both the debate and the town hall formats will have certain "off the cuff" moments, but town halls are much more predictable.

[ice grillin you]

he wants town halls so that middle america can ask obama questions like how long have you been a muslim and why does your wife hate america

[Phanatic]

Nader just delivered petitions to get on the ballot here in Missouri. From what I heard he's running the same platform as Obama. I can't figure out why he's even running.

[Cerevant]

Nader just delivered petitions to get on the ballot here in Missouri. From what I heard he's running the same platform as Obama. I can't figure out why he's even running.

I'm guessing that's why Nader isn't affecting Obama in the polls.  McCain seems to be taking a hit though - racist moderates?

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

Bob Barr isn't a total joke, and Libertarians have a real backing.  Expect Barr's numbers to go up as Obama's election looks more and more inevitable, too.  I might actually vote for Barr.

Nader, on the other hand, lost his target audience to Obama, so his niche is all dried up.  He'd do much better against someone like Hillary.

[Cerevant]

Huh?

KING: If this would go back, start all over again, would you go into Iraq if you could go back?

    MCCAIN: I think the world is better off knowing what I know at the time and the fact that Saddam Hussein was bent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction, $12 billion Oil for Food scandal. American airplanes were being shot at. Sanctions were breaking down. It's clear that he wanted to go back and acquire weapons of mass destruction and use them. I don't think there is any doubt. I think we did the right thing. I think that it was a colossal intelligence failure on the part of the United States and every other county as to whether he had them or not. But again, I would remind you, I said we would have an easy victory. We did.

    And then we employed the wrong strategy which doomed us to failure and we were losing this war when I said we had to have this new strategy all along and stoop up for it when most political pundits said that my career was finished.

How can you have both "an easy victory" but be "doomed...to failure"?

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

They had an easy victory in capturing Saddam?

What do I farging know?  Old people just ramble on about nothing.

[Geowhizzer]

I figure you already know this, but he was separating the two parts of the war:

Easy victory - defeating the Iraqi army, removing Hussein from power.

Doomed to failure - the occupation stragegy after the "major combat." - the belief of "mission accomplished," which, of course, all politicians (or nearly all) celebrated in with Bush, whether democrats or republicans.

[Seabiscuit36]

The actual Military part was quick and effective, even though it was horribly sloppy.  The lack of forsight though for an ongoing occupation while a new government was established is appalling 

[Cerevant]

The actual Military part ...

If the actual military part was over with the execution of Saddam Hussein, WTF was the surge for?

Sounds to me that we won a battle but are losing the war.  Nothing quick and easy about that.

[Phanatic]

There really are two parts to this thing and what he said makes sense. Army to Army it was an easy victory. As far as occupation our troops weren't trained for it and there weren't enough troops on the ground to pull it off. Hense the surge. Rumsfeld was convinced that he could do everything on the cheap.

[Seabiscuit36]

no shtein canuck.  Im talking about military fighting, not Militia's and other Freedom fighters

[Cerevant]

This just brings up the whole shifting objective bit.  When exactly can we say "we're done"?  First it was WMD's, then we had to get Saddam out, then we had to set up a puppet government, now we have to convince them to actually run the country.  When does it end?

[Seabiscuit36]

When its turned to glass

[Cerevant]

Too bad that's not an option - think of all the money big oil would lose if they had to put diamond tips on their drills.