6/28/2008 - Wait, Who's the Snobby Elitist One Again??? |
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SEVEN fucking houses "including condos in California and Arizona"??? Just how many houses does one couple need? Lots apparently.
So many that, well, you sometimes just forget to pay your taxes on one of them. Whoops. And then there's Barack Obama, a guy who was raised by a single mother and his grandparents. A guy who went to college on scholarships, worked his way up the ladder and has shown Americans what it means to live the American Dream, the dream that says if you work hard, you can do anything in this country, even be president. This is the guy that Karl Rove recently said this about: "Even if you never met him, you know this guy," Rove said, per Christianne Klein. "He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by."
The Republican smear machine is going to get stalled this time. Why? Because even stupid people aren't believing this shit this time. Nobody believes that Barack Obama is in any way described by this characterization. This is a guy who is the embodiment of open-mindedness, diversity and bringing people together. I think Karl has Senator Obama confused with Senator McCain, the guy with seven houses. Now that is a guy you might find standing around at the country club with their trophy wife. You know, like Cindy McCain. I'm just sayin'... |
6/28/2008 - Aielman Said... |
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When you have as much money as Cindy McCain does, you need to have a good bit of property for tax reasons. So the answer to your question is "as many as necessary to offset some of your tax burden. You also don't do your own taxes...you pay people to. So it's not like she "forgot" to pay the tax on it...someone she hired neglected to. She's still responsible for it ultimately, but it's pretty disengenuous to blame her for the mistake as if she's the one that made it.
And then there's Barack Obama, a guy who was raised by a single mother and his grandparents. Yeah...and he went to Harvard. He's in the club. You're not going to sell him being a man of the people any more than McCain still is. |
6/28/2008 - Eclectablog Said... |
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Yes. Went to Harvard.
On. A. Scholarship. Going to Harvard isn't a mark against somebody, particularly when they got there without money connections. Seriously. What the fuck? When did being a college graduate suddenly become a demerit making you unable to be a "normal" person??? Post-Rovian politics is fucked up. |
6/29/2008 - Aielman Said... |
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I didn't say it was a demerit. I said it put him in the club. It doesn't matter how he got there...he's in. And he didn't just go to Harvard...he went to Harvard law. This after attending Colombia, another Ivy league school. He clerked for both a circuit court judge and for an associate justice of the supreme court.
He's more a member of the old boys club than McCain could ever be as he only married into money. That's not a knock against him, but it is a fact. |
6/29/2008 - texican Said... |
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Yup...he came from very humble beginnings and has done very well. Let's just hope he remembers where he came from, should he win. |
6/29/2008 - thebigp Said... |
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John McCain - legislator in Washington since 1982 (26 years ago)
Barack Obama - elected to his first senate term in 2004 (4 years ago) Who sounds more like a member of the Old Boys club? Now do the predictable thing and complain that he's inexperienced like every other member of the GOP does. |
6/29/2008 - Aielman Said... |
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Who sounds more like a member of the Old Boys club?
The one who went to harvard. And he is inexperienced with executive leadership and has no experience with foreign policy. The fact that he represents change doesn't erase some pretty terrible policy ideas either. |
6/29/2008 - Eclectablog Said... |
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And he is inexperienced with executive leadership and has no experience with foreign policy.
Which also, of course, also describes John McCain to a tee. Not that anyone is noticing or anything. As long as he's got Lieberman to whisper in his ear which guys Iranians like, Shiites or Sunnis, he's solid on foreign policy. Or not. |
6/29/2008 - Aielman Said... |
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Which also, of course, also describes John McCain to a tee
Actually, no it doesn't. McCain has command experience that Obama doesn't have, and he's served. As far as foreign policy experience, He has visited every region of the world, including Antarctica and the Arctic Circle, and frequently meets with leaders of the countries to which he's traveled, both when he visits their countries and when they visit the United States...and he's been doing so for decades. He's also a senior member of the Armed Services committee which gives him quite a bit of foreign policy and defense policy experience. But I'm not voting for him either, so it's pretty much irrelevent. |
6/29/2008 - thebigp Said... |
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You think going to Harvard is the only criteria for being a member of the Old Washington Elite? |
6/29/2008 - Aielman Said... |
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No...but going to Colombia followed by Harvard law is a one of the big ways in. It puts you in the door in ways that marrying in never could. |
6/29/2008 - Eclectablog Said... |
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I really do find the whole concept of painting Barack Obama as a snobby elitist to be totally hilarious.
*sigh* |
6/29/2008 - Aielman Said... |
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Yeap. About as funny as doing the same for McCain |
6/29/2008 - thebigp Said... |
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Barack Obama grew up in Chicago, the son of a single mother who went to school on scholarships and Stafford loans.
John McCain came from a family of high ranking naval officers and if you know anything about the Navy, Admirals make fine money. Then he goes and marries a woman worth, what...$100 million? How is the Christian Conservative Right going to justify being a family values party when it's candidate for president lives off beer money? |
6/30/2008 - texican Said... |
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Yeah, but he promised to veto beer... |
6/30/2008 - Eclectablog Said... |
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Rene has a point there, Phil. The guy did promise to "veto any beer". |
6/30/2008 - Aielman Said... |
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John McCain came from a family of high ranking naval officers and if you know anything about the Navy, Admirals make fine money.
I'm a 4th generation sailor...I know exactly what admirals make. While John McCain was born, his father was a Lieutenant making $47k in adjusted dollars. Growing up, his father made it to Captain which was $87k in adjusted dollars...and his mother didn't work, so he was in a single income home as well. He made Admiral after his son went to Annapolis. Admiral McCain was making a base pay of $129k when he died while his son was in a prisoner of war camp. His composite pay rate would have been at $190k max, depending on what kind of housing, sustenance, special pay and incentive pay he was getting. Barack Obama grew up in Chicago, the son of a single mother who went to school on scholarships and Stafford loans. That is a complete crock that completely ignores Obama's own published history. If you're stand up for the man and defend his past, at least learn what he's about and where he's from. Obama, from the age of 6, lived with his stepfather Lolo Soetoro, (who was a consultant for Mobile Oil, which traditionally denotes he'd have been pulling in a pretty nice salary), and mother in Jakarta until he was in middle school. His mother wasn't exactly starving either. He then went to live with his grandparents in Hawaii. Luckily, his grandmother was the vice president of the Bank of Hawaii, so she could afford to send him to the presigious Punahou School, a private prep school on Honolulu. In adjusted dollars, the tuition was about $16k a year. Obviously they were hurting for money. So to characterize Obama as "the son of a single mother who went to school on scholarships and Stafford loans" is putting enough spin on his background to make a persistent hum. Basically, you have McCain... a kid who went to public school living in a single income navy family and then the naval academy...and you have a kid who lived first with an oil executive and then the vp of a bank, attended private prep school, then an ivy league university, and then THE ivy league law school. Now which one is in the good old boys club again? How is the Christian Conservative Right going to justify being a family values party when it's candidate for president lives off beer money? Oh. So rich people can't have family values? |
6/30/2008 - thebigp Said... |
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I am aware that his father worked for Mobil and that he moved to Jakarta with his mother and stepfather who was an Indonesian national. He then chose to go back to the states and live with his grandparents who weren't wealthy in any way, shape or form.
And I never said that rich people couldn't have values, I said that the right which is heavily influenced by the religious conservatives are going to have to pretend to ignore the fact that John and Cindy McCain live off the profits of beer sales, which many religious leaders have blamed for the moral decline in our society. |
7/1/2008 - Eclectablog Said... |
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Well said, Phil. |
7/1/2008 - Aielman Said... |
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He then chose to go back to the states and live with his grandparents who weren't wealthy in any way, shape or form.
Oh really? His grandmother was the Vice-President of the Bank of Hawaii. Now I don't know about how it is where you live, but that's really good money here. Good enough that she could afford to send him to the most prestigious private school on the islands. A school who's tuition today is $16k a year. And grandpa worked too. Once mom got there after divorcing the stepfather, there was a 3 income home in Hawaii. They never lived together in Chicago because He was in college by the time his mother settled there. Read his own damn autobiography for crying out loud. It's all in there. So I'm sorry to say, but you are wrong. His family was pretty well off. A helluva lot more so than the McCain family who was living off the pay of a single navy officer who hadn't even made flag rank until McCain was an adult and in college. which many religious leaders have blamed for the moral decline in our society. Yes...well, many religious leaders think that gay marriage will cause the downfall of man, that the world is flat, and that Santa Claus is evil, so all that tells us is that there are a lot of stupid religious leaders. I imagine the religious right will just have to manage to choke down their objections to the moral turpitude of the McCains much the same way as the religious left, which gets far less airplay but manages to count among it the second largest denomination in the US, chokes down that of the democrats. Churches in general seem to be able to look the other way pretty easily as long as the donations keep rolling in. |
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Name: Mr. E (get it?) Location: Ann Arbor-ish, Michigan, USA, Earth EFx2Blogger since: September 19, 2007 |
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Some folks sleep on a problem, but you can camp on one as well. Camping is for the mind what a high-speed run on the highway is for a car. It tends to blow out all the sludge that accumulates in the type of urban driving most of us are forced to do in order to earn a living.-- Tim Cahill
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