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PoliGAF Interim Thread of Tears/Lapel Pins (ScratchingHisCheek-Gate)

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There is no end in sight for the U.S. military occupation of Iraq and a quick exit would risk "massive chaos and even genocide," a U.S. think tank said in a report released on Sunday.

The report by the Institute of Peace comes two days before U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and top commander Gen. David Petraeus are due to deliver testimony to the Congress on progress in the Iraq, now entering its sixth year.

"The U.S. is no closer to being able to leave Iraq than it was a year ago," said the report, written by experts who advised a high-profile Iraq policy panel convened by Congress in 2006. "Lasting political development could take five to ten years of full, unconditional U.S. commitment to Iraq."

The report warned that a fast exit from Iraq "risks a complete failure of the Iraqi state, massive chaos and even genocide."

Reuters
 
maynerd said:
Went to the district caucus yesterday as a delegate.

There were 49 district delegates up for grabs.

It broke this way.

Obama
594 precinct delegates
36 district delegates

Clinton
219 precinct delegates
13 district delegates

3 clinton precinct delegates switched from clinton to obama
1 obama precinct delegates switched from obama to clinton
all 4 undecided went to obama

The process took a long time ~8 hours
bang.gif
 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/04/05/ST2008040502204.html?sid=ST2008040502204

A new assessment of U.S. policy in Iraq by the same experts who advised the original Iraq Study Group concludes that political progress is "so slow, halting and superficial" and political fragmentation "so pronounced" that the United States is no closer to being able to leave Iraq than it was a year ago.

The experts were reassembled by the U.S. Institute of Peace, which convened the congressionally mandated Iraq Study Group, a high-level panel that assessed U.S. policy in Iraq and offered recommendations in 2006. The new report predicts that lasting political development could take five to 10 years of "full, unconditional commitment" to Iraq, but also cautions that future progress may not be worth the "massive" human and financial costs to the United States.[/QUOTE

I guess the surge is working. :lol
 
McCain's son served 7 months in the Anbar Province last year as a Marine. His other son graduates from the Naval Acedemy next year and could also be deployed to the theater:

Mr. McCain has largely maintained a code of silence about his son, now a lance corporal, making only fleeting references to him in public both to protect him from becoming a prize target and avoid exploiting his service for political gain, according to friends. At the few campaign events where Lance Corporal McCain appeared last year, he was not introduced.

The McCains declined to be interviewed for this article, which the campaign requested not be published. “The McCain campaign objects strongly to this intrusion into the privacy of Senator McCain’s son,” Steve Schmidt, a campaign spokesman, said in a statement. “The children of presidential candidates in this election cycle should be afforded the same respect for their privacy that the children of President Bush and President and Senator Clinton have been afforded.” (To protect Lance Corporal McCain in case he is again deployed to a war zone, The New York Times is not publishing recent photographs of him and has withheld some details of his service).

NYT
 

Alcander

Member
Finally decided to talk to my dad about politics the other night (he's a hardcore conservative, so I didn't bother earlier to avoid any bad blood) and surprisingly he said he actually kind of liked Obama! I was seriously really surprised, but I think its due to him more disliking McCain ("doesn't excite him", too tied to Iraq war -- which he also opposes now).

More anecdotal evidence of Repubs for Obama, although I sort of doubt he would end up voting for him in the general.
 

Triumph

Banned
siamesedreamer said:
Yes, you're absolutely right. The surge was a complete failure.
More like the surge appeared to be doing more good than it actually was because we're paying the Sunnis in Anbar that were killing us a year ago not to now, and because al Sadr decided not to have the Mahdi army keep killing people.

The surge certainly helped a bit, but let's be honest- at this point it would take about half a million troops to actually accomplish our goals, and a sizable number of those would die doing it.
 

schuelma

Wastes hours checking old Famitsu software data, but that's why we love him.
siamesedreamer said:
McCain's son served 7 months in the Anbar Province last year as a Marine. His other son graduates from the Naval Acedemy next year and could also be deployed to the theater:



NYT


Very nice article
 

ZealousD

Makes world leading predictions like "The sun will rise tomorrow"
Cheebs said:
Hillary said Obama hasn't passed the commander in chief test.

McCain? He says Obama has. He went as far as to say Obama is "absolutely qualified" to be President.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/04/06/mccain_obama_absolutely_qualif.html

I guess the "not enough experience to trust him in the white house!" is even too harsh of an attack for the republicans. Not for hillary though lol

I'm really glad that in an Obama-McCain matchup, neither candidate would be going super-negative on each other's character. Seems like it would definitely be one of the cleanest campaigns in recent history.

Unless of course, the 527's have anything to say about it.
 
ZealousD said:
I'm really glad that in an Obama-McCain matchup, neither candidate would be going super-negative on each other's character. Seems like it would definitely be one of the cleanest campaigns in recent history.

Unless of course, the 527's have anything to say about it.

Kudos for McCain and Obama wanting to go this route. Too bad the 527's will have their say.

I think McCain got more of his fair share running against Bush/Rove.
 

Slurpy

*drowns in jizz*
siamesedreamer said:
You haven't been payng attention.

Bullshit. Its a fucking strawman you and a few others put up to dismiss any discussion or debate. Painting supporters as dellusional and believing he is perfect, putting words in their mouths, something noone who supports him has done in this thread. From what Ive seen Obama supporters are much quicker to admit to his flaws than Hillary supporters admit to hers. Fuck off with that shit.
 

scorcho

testicles on a cold fall morning
Slurpy said:
Bullshit. Its a fucking strawman you and a few others put up to dismiss any discussion or debate. Painting supporters as dellusional and believing he is perfect, putting words in their mouths, something noone who supports him has done in this thread. From what Ive seen Obama supporters are much quicker to admit to his flaws than Hillary supporters admit to hers. Fuck off with that shit.
painting strawmen are what some do best.

and couldn't we get a better title for Penn stepping down? it's just so...boring.
 

ZealousD

Makes world leading predictions like "The sun will rise tomorrow"
Slurpy said:
From what Ive seen Obama supporters are much quicker to admit to his flaws than Hillary supporters admit to hers. Fuck off with that shit.

THIS IS SOLID PROOF THAT CLINTON IS BETTER. AFTERALL, EVEN HIS SUPPORTERS ADMIT HE IS A FLAWED CANDIDATE.

AMIRITE?
 

GhaleonEB

Member
mckmas8808 said:
So what is she up by 22 supers now?
24, according to that site. Give or take a few for the other media outlets. There was a pause in endorsements for a little while, but the pace has picked up again. I wonder how close the gap will be by the time PA rolls around.

Margaret Campbell, a Montana state legislator, plans to declare her support for Senator Obama, of Illinois. She becomes the 69th superdelegate he has picked up since the Feb. 5 coast-to-coast string of primary elections and caucus votes.

In the same period, Senator Clinton, of New York, has seen a net loss of two superdelegates, according to figures from the Obama campaign that Clinton aides do not dispute. That erosion may dim Mrs. Clinton’s remaining hopes even more than internal campaign turmoil, which led to the ouster on Sunday of the campaign’s chief strategist, Mark Penn.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/07/us/politics/07caucus.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
 

ralexand

100% logic failure rate
Lanny Davis was just on Fox and Friends saying that the deputy has confirmed that the health care stump story was true. is that true?
 

syllogism

Member
ralexand said:
Lanny Davis was just on Fox and Friends saying that the deputy has confirmed that the health care stump story was true. is that true?
He was probably saying Hillary was just repeating what Deputy Bryan Holman told her. The hospital CEO has stated it's not true. The deputy apparently claims it could have been another hospital, but they don't know which and it's simply more likely the family, his source, was mistaken.

e:
McAuliffe%20photo%202-thumb.jpg


Amazing, amazing
 
ralexand said:
Lanny Davis was just on Fox and Friends saying that the deputy has confirmed that the health care stump story was true. is that true?

The folks at Fox and Friends seem to be in a completely different reality altogether so nothing they say surprises me. If they didn't find some way to link this to Obama and Jeremiah Wright I would be surprised.
 

gkryhewy

Member
Triumph said:
More like the surge appeared to be doing more good than it actually was because we're paying the Sunnis in Anbar that were killing us a year ago not to now, and because al Sadr decided not to have the Mahdi army keep killing people.

The surge certainly helped a bit, but let's be honest- at this point it would take about half a million troops to actually accomplish our goals, and a sizable number of those would die doing it.

reggie.jpg
 

Farmboy

Member
So have we been making predictions yet for the rest of the contests? Here are mine, up to and including May 6th.

(State; Obama%; Clinton%; Obama Delegate Gain)

Pennsylvania: 47% 53% -10 (just outside of 5%, would still be an encouraging result)
Guam: 55% 45% 0 (no-one will care)
Indiana: 52% 48% +2 (slight surprise victory)
North Carolina: 59% 41% +21 (just shy of a 20-point blow-out, still enough to completely eradicate Hillary's gain in Penn.)
 

gkryhewy

Member
AniHawk said:
Can we not use this anymore? Especially in a thread like this?

I was making a point about those who wish to perpetuate this retarded escapade at the cost of other people's lives, but yeah, okay. Switched to text.

Pennsylvania: 42% 58% -26 (just outside of 5%, would still be an encouraging result)

16 points? Not a snowball's chance in hell.
 

tanod

when is my burrito
BUTTE, Mont. - Barack Obama wants to make something clear: He loves America.

After a series of incidents that prompted questions about his patriotism, the Democratic presidential candidate is peppering speeches with explicit statements on his love of country.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23994060/

He's nipping any question of his patriotism in the bud before the general. His campaign is basically the antithesis to John Kerry's as far as responding to attacks/insinuations.
 
Excerpt from a major McCain speech on Iraq at the VFW today:

McCain said:
But the question for the next President is not about the past, but about the future and how to secure it. Our most vital security interests are at stake in Iraq. The stability of the entire Middle East, that volatile and critically important region, is at stake. The United States’ credibility as a moral and political leader is at stake. How to safeguard those interests is what we should be debating.
 
tanod said:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23994060/

He's nipping any question of his patriotism in the bud before the general. His campaign is basically the antithesis to John Kerry's as far as responding to attacks/insinuations.

That theme may also help quite a bit especially with the recent Rev. Wright thing and that 12% of the general public still believes that he's an [Fox News slant]american-hating[/Fox News slant] muslim.
 

RubxQub

φίλω ἐξεχέγλουτον καί ψευδολόγον οὖκ εἰπόν
siamesedreamer said:
Excerpt from a major McCain speech on Iraq at the VFW today:
Of course it's not about the past! When you fucked up by giving the president the power to wage a useless war...it's awfully convenient to push the conversation away from your mistakes.
 

scorcho

testicles on a cold fall morning
'major' speech on Iraq that promotes following the same failed policy of the Bush Administration.
 
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