Sorry you are reacting so badly to constructive criticism PJABBER, keep reaching for that rainbow though! I believe in you.
Sheik Yerbouti
Lifer
- Feb 16, 2005
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me no like prezuhdent what has legiti... too big of word. real degree from big school his legacy didn't get him into. Me want prezuhdent who say nuculear like the real world does. Me no like prezuhdent who was first afri.. what country was that again.. oh yea, african american prezuhdent of the harvard law review...
It might be accurate to say that I "lean toward" conservatism on many issues; but, unlike many here, my mind is open and I formulate my opinions on every specific issue individually. I will never place myself in a narrowly defined political box by naming or claiming myself a member of any political party.
I personally feel that card-carrying members of any party are weak-minded group-thinkers who threaten the wellbeing of our entire nation on a daily basis.
That said -- once again -- my posts had nothing at all to do with politics or media, and everything to do with my own anecdotal evidence supporting the stereotypes described in the OP of Ivy League acadamia.
LunarRay
Diamond Member
- Mar 2, 2003
- 9,993
- 1
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I watched a rather interesting bit of interaction the other day... must have been months ago, actually. On a breakwater grouping of rocks sat this fellow just staring out at the Pacific. The tide was coming in and the waves were crashing against the breakwater boulders and the spray was rising many meters into the air and drenching this poor fellow. He got up after awhile and came to where I was standing (nice dry area) to smoke a cigarette. We spoke a bit about the wonder of the sea and he returned to his drenched perch and I, looking at the ominous clouds above, started for home. All of a sudden it started to rain... I continued toward my home and this fellow from the breakwater rushed past me. I yelled out to him to find out why he was in such a hurry. He said, "It's raining, I left my umbrella in the car".
I know this fellow. He's a tenured Professor at UCSD's Graduate School of Business! Later that week I ran into him on campus and asked about the deal at the beach. He looked at me rather surprised that I found it odd, I gathered. He explained in an off hand manner that sitting there with the ocean gives him the ability to think deeply into stuff while the rain simply annoys him.
Now when I observe folks doing what may not appear to be logical I step back and remember the fellow, the rain and the sea. None of us can know what is behind the thinking of folks. Their motive for actions may be clouded by what we'd expect to see. You must let unravel what is before you before you judge and then maybe just judge the result and not the method.
To the 'Moonbeam hammer' all is a nail is true, in general, but to me, today, a hammer is a tool and its use is not limited by me.
I know this fellow. He's a tenured Professor at UCSD's Graduate School of Business! Later that week I ran into him on campus and asked about the deal at the beach. He looked at me rather surprised that I found it odd, I gathered. He explained in an off hand manner that sitting there with the ocean gives him the ability to think deeply into stuff while the rain simply annoys him.
Now when I observe folks doing what may not appear to be logical I step back and remember the fellow, the rain and the sea. None of us can know what is behind the thinking of folks. Their motive for actions may be clouded by what we'd expect to see. You must let unravel what is before you before you judge and then maybe just judge the result and not the method.
To the 'Moonbeam hammer' all is a nail is true, in general, but to me, today, a hammer is a tool and its use is not limited by me.
Ahh, the smarmy know it all non-traditional student that pretends to know it all and argues with professors using "Real Life" experience to fill in for gaps in their knowledge.
I'm sure that's how those professors viewed me as well... but, at the end of the day, they were still wrong and I was right, so I could care less.
The only tool more valuable than real experience is luck.
Reminds me of when I took a couple of years of civil eng classes way back when.
Had to write a make believe Eng. project proposal up for a technical writing class.
At the time was working part time with a surveyor already so to describe the imaginary project I borrowed a real life property legal description to use as a legal desciption for the imaginary job site.
I got graded down for it because according to my teacher they did not describe property like that in real life. And no amount of arguing could convince her otherwise.
- Feb 8, 2001
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Perhaps equating Obama to a college president is an example not particularly recognizable to those outside of academia politics.
Perhaps we should again turn to TV culture to illustrate the concern that is permeating the world.
Why don't we look to an observer in Australia. Surely they see Obama the way so many here do? The focus is on foreign policy but maybe we can extrapolate that into the domestic as well?
Obama is no Fonzie
Obama is no Fonzie
Greg Sheridan, Foreign editor | September 24, 2009
The Australian
Greg Sheridan is the most influential foreign affairs commentator in Australia. A veteran of over 30 years in the field, he has written five books and is a frequent commentator on Australian and international radio and TV.
It may seem rather unkind to express some serious doubts about US President Barack Obama just now. He is wowing the UN with talk of nuclear disarmament. He is mesmerising the Group of 20 with talk of global recovery. He is leading a policy review that talks of winning in Afghanistan and he will not send more troops in response to the request of the US military commander in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, without deeper talks.
He has stirred hearts in the Middle East with talk of peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. And from October 1 he will be talking directly with the Iranians in pursuit of his talk of stopping Tehran from getting nuclear weapons.
It's a lot of very impressive talk. And yet, and yet...
Machiavelli said for a prince it is better to be feared than to be loved.
For much of his presidency, most of the world feared George W. Bush. For a brief, shining moment after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, America's enemies feared Bush, while almost all the rest of the world loved him.
That is the perfect situation for any US president. It can't be sustained, of course, and Bush squandered the love part of the equation much more quickly and much more comprehensively than he should have. But he never lost the fear bit.
Here's my worry about Obama. Lots of people love him and he is indeed very lovable. But I wonder if anyone at all, anywhere in the world, really fears him.
Let's move forward a bit from Machiavelli for our strategic guidance. Let's refer instead to the great classic of American strategic pedagogy, Happy Days.
Happy Days pivoted around the friendship between two very different American teenagers, Richie Cunningham and Fonzie Fonzarelli.
Richie was clean-cut, wholesome, an absolute goody-goody, and everybody loved him. Fonzie, especially in the early series, was a tough nut. Greased-back hair, always astride his outlaw motorbike, decked out in Marlon Brando T-shirt, Fonzie inspired fear and envy in men, and swoons among the gals.
Everyone was frightened of Fonzie. He could banish bad guys with a look. In one episode, Fonzie tried to teach Richie his style. Richie practised the grimaces, the flexes, the stares, but alas the bad guys were not impressed and certainly not deterred.
In the midst of a desperate scrape, Richie turned to Fonzie imploringly and asked: Why are my deadly looks, threatening flexes and strategic grimaces having no effect?
Oh yeah, Fonzie replied, I forgot to tell you. For all that to work, once in your life you have to have hit someone. You cannot imagine a deeper strategic insight.
At some point, Obama is going to have to do something seriously unpleasant to someone.
Obama's one serious foreign policy initiative during the presidential campaign was to promise that he would talk productively to America's enemies. It would be easy to mock this; all US presidents, after all, have tried to talk to America's enemies, right up to the point at which they attack the US or its allies or just become unacceptable security risks. Nonetheless, Obama's approach, fortified by his huge global popularity, was certainly worth a try.
Which enemies, by the way, did he have in mind? The following list may not be exclusive but certainly Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, the Taliban in Afghanistan and, presumably, Syria all figured on it.
Yet the striking thing, almost a year into the Obama presidency, is how little substantial talk with these enemies has gone on and how what talk has gone on has produced absolutely nothing. Nada. Zip. Diddly-squat.
You see, I don't think any of America's enemies, or indeed any of its friends, fear Obama. I hope they are making a grave miscalculation, but I have my doubts.
The Iranians have made a kind of pantomime dance out of mocking dialogue with Obama. He wants to talk about their weapons-based uranium enrichment and their flouting of International Atomic Energy Agency rules. The mullahs of Tehran fall about laughing at this. They steal an election, bash, murder and rape their opponents into submission and deliberately miss Obama's solemn deadline of September for starting talks.
Obama set the September deadline partly so the Iranians could tremble before the assembled might of this week's UN General Assembly.
The Iranians said the talks would begin on October 1 and that is when they will begin. And the Iranians don't plan to talk about their uranium enrichment program. Instead they will talk about the injustice of supposed US domination of the UN.
Just to make sure everyone is on the same page, the Iranians took a couple of extra measures. They appointed a man wanted by Interpol for his part in blowing up a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires in the early 1990s as their Defence Minister. Then Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeated his sick denial of the Holocaust. If the Iranians behave at the October dialogue as they say they will, then the Americans should persist with it for about 10 minutes before moving to comprehensive sanctions against Iran as the only possible alternative to an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, possibly before Christmas.
A genuinely tough sanctions regime on Iran would be the Fonzie moment in Obama's Richie Cunningham presidency.
So far Obama has courted popularity with America's critics by himself criticising America's past and by giving things away.
He gave the Arabs all kinds of rhetorical concessions, many of them factually wrong, in his Cairo speech in June. He gave the Russians a huge concession this month by abruptly cancelling a missile defence system that would have been based in Poland and the Czech Republic. This abrupt cancellation embarrassed and insulted the Czechs and the Poles, who incidentally may never again be as accommodating to the Americans. But they, you see, are America's friends and Obama's target audience is America's critics and enemies.
The action on the missile defence system will have any merit only if the Russians eventually join the most comprehensive sanctions regime against the Iranians.
Obama tried to give the Palestinians, and the Arabs more generally, an Israeli settlement freeze in the West Bank. But the most instructive element of this episode is that even the Israelis, with all their intimate dependence on the Americans, don't feel compelled to give Obama any serious face on this issue. They don't fear him either.
Of course, should Obama finally decide to take real action on Iran, all this soft shuffle and endless sweet talk in advance may have helped establish his bona fides.
I have been in London this week. The Daily Telegraph, a conservative but generally pro-American newspaper, carried a comment piece headlined: "President is beginning to look out of his depth".
It's too early to make that call, but I'm starting to get worried.
Perhaps we should again turn to TV culture to illustrate the concern that is permeating the world.
Why don't we look to an observer in Australia. Surely they see Obama the way so many here do? The focus is on foreign policy but maybe we can extrapolate that into the domestic as well?
Obama is no Fonzie
Obama is no Fonzie
Greg Sheridan, Foreign editor | September 24, 2009
The Australian
Greg Sheridan is the most influential foreign affairs commentator in Australia. A veteran of over 30 years in the field, he has written five books and is a frequent commentator on Australian and international radio and TV.
It may seem rather unkind to express some serious doubts about US President Barack Obama just now. He is wowing the UN with talk of nuclear disarmament. He is mesmerising the Group of 20 with talk of global recovery. He is leading a policy review that talks of winning in Afghanistan and he will not send more troops in response to the request of the US military commander in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, without deeper talks.
He has stirred hearts in the Middle East with talk of peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. And from October 1 he will be talking directly with the Iranians in pursuit of his talk of stopping Tehran from getting nuclear weapons.
It's a lot of very impressive talk. And yet, and yet...
Machiavelli said for a prince it is better to be feared than to be loved.
For much of his presidency, most of the world feared George W. Bush. For a brief, shining moment after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, America's enemies feared Bush, while almost all the rest of the world loved him.
That is the perfect situation for any US president. It can't be sustained, of course, and Bush squandered the love part of the equation much more quickly and much more comprehensively than he should have. But he never lost the fear bit.
Here's my worry about Obama. Lots of people love him and he is indeed very lovable. But I wonder if anyone at all, anywhere in the world, really fears him.
Let's move forward a bit from Machiavelli for our strategic guidance. Let's refer instead to the great classic of American strategic pedagogy, Happy Days.
Happy Days pivoted around the friendship between two very different American teenagers, Richie Cunningham and Fonzie Fonzarelli.
Richie was clean-cut, wholesome, an absolute goody-goody, and everybody loved him. Fonzie, especially in the early series, was a tough nut. Greased-back hair, always astride his outlaw motorbike, decked out in Marlon Brando T-shirt, Fonzie inspired fear and envy in men, and swoons among the gals.
Everyone was frightened of Fonzie. He could banish bad guys with a look. In one episode, Fonzie tried to teach Richie his style. Richie practised the grimaces, the flexes, the stares, but alas the bad guys were not impressed and certainly not deterred.
In the midst of a desperate scrape, Richie turned to Fonzie imploringly and asked: Why are my deadly looks, threatening flexes and strategic grimaces having no effect?
Oh yeah, Fonzie replied, I forgot to tell you. For all that to work, once in your life you have to have hit someone. You cannot imagine a deeper strategic insight.
At some point, Obama is going to have to do something seriously unpleasant to someone.
Obama's one serious foreign policy initiative during the presidential campaign was to promise that he would talk productively to America's enemies. It would be easy to mock this; all US presidents, after all, have tried to talk to America's enemies, right up to the point at which they attack the US or its allies or just become unacceptable security risks. Nonetheless, Obama's approach, fortified by his huge global popularity, was certainly worth a try.
Which enemies, by the way, did he have in mind? The following list may not be exclusive but certainly Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, the Taliban in Afghanistan and, presumably, Syria all figured on it.
Yet the striking thing, almost a year into the Obama presidency, is how little substantial talk with these enemies has gone on and how what talk has gone on has produced absolutely nothing. Nada. Zip. Diddly-squat.
You see, I don't think any of America's enemies, or indeed any of its friends, fear Obama. I hope they are making a grave miscalculation, but I have my doubts.
The Iranians have made a kind of pantomime dance out of mocking dialogue with Obama. He wants to talk about their weapons-based uranium enrichment and their flouting of International Atomic Energy Agency rules. The mullahs of Tehran fall about laughing at this. They steal an election, bash, murder and rape their opponents into submission and deliberately miss Obama's solemn deadline of September for starting talks.
Obama set the September deadline partly so the Iranians could tremble before the assembled might of this week's UN General Assembly.
The Iranians said the talks would begin on October 1 and that is when they will begin. And the Iranians don't plan to talk about their uranium enrichment program. Instead they will talk about the injustice of supposed US domination of the UN.
Just to make sure everyone is on the same page, the Iranians took a couple of extra measures. They appointed a man wanted by Interpol for his part in blowing up a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires in the early 1990s as their Defence Minister. Then Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeated his sick denial of the Holocaust. If the Iranians behave at the October dialogue as they say they will, then the Americans should persist with it for about 10 minutes before moving to comprehensive sanctions against Iran as the only possible alternative to an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, possibly before Christmas.
A genuinely tough sanctions regime on Iran would be the Fonzie moment in Obama's Richie Cunningham presidency.
So far Obama has courted popularity with America's critics by himself criticising America's past and by giving things away.
He gave the Arabs all kinds of rhetorical concessions, many of them factually wrong, in his Cairo speech in June. He gave the Russians a huge concession this month by abruptly cancelling a missile defence system that would have been based in Poland and the Czech Republic. This abrupt cancellation embarrassed and insulted the Czechs and the Poles, who incidentally may never again be as accommodating to the Americans. But they, you see, are America's friends and Obama's target audience is America's critics and enemies.
The action on the missile defence system will have any merit only if the Russians eventually join the most comprehensive sanctions regime against the Iranians.
Obama tried to give the Palestinians, and the Arabs more generally, an Israeli settlement freeze in the West Bank. But the most instructive element of this episode is that even the Israelis, with all their intimate dependence on the Americans, don't feel compelled to give Obama any serious face on this issue. They don't fear him either.
Of course, should Obama finally decide to take real action on Iran, all this soft shuffle and endless sweet talk in advance may have helped establish his bona fides.
I have been in London this week. The Daily Telegraph, a conservative but generally pro-American newspaper, carried a comment piece headlined: "President is beginning to look out of his depth".
It's too early to make that call, but I'm starting to get worried.
- Feb 8, 2001
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What about that article in The Daily Telegraph referenced above?
I like to read The Daily Telegraph when it is one of the newspapers that get slipped under the door at my hotel in London. I also admit that I do read The Economist fairly regularly, and always when on air travel.
Maybe Edward Lucas is not a familiar name unless you read those particular publications.
Are you finding a commonality to the perception of President Obama that is being missed by his supporters?
President Barack Obama is beginning to look out of his depth
President Barack Obama is beginning to look out of his depth
By Edward Lucas
Published: 8:30AM BST 20 Sep 2009
The Daily Telegraph
Edward Lucas is a British journalist and works for The Economist, the London-based global newsweekly. He has been covering eastern Europe since 1986, and was the Moscow bureau chief from 1998-2002. He is now the central and east European correspondent. He also was the correspondent for The Independent and BBC. He was educated at Winchester College, the London School of Economics and studied Polish at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. He has contributed to several books, including "Why I am still an Anglican" (Continuum 2006). His father is the Oxford philosopher John Lucas, and he is married to the columnist Cristina Odone. Edward Lucas's latest book, "The New Cold War", appeared in 2008.
It is lovely to feature in other people's dreams. The problem comes when they wake up. Barack Obama is an eloquent, brainy and likeable man with a fascinating biography. He is not George Bush. Those are great qualities. But they are not enough to lead America, let alone the world.
Mr Obama's public image rests increasingly heavily on his extraordinary speechifying abilities.
Admittedly, the presidential to-do list is terrifying. The economy requires his full-time attention. So does health-care reform. And climate change. Indeed, he deserves praise for spending so much time on thankless foreign policy issues. He is tackling all the big problems: restarting Middle East peace talks, defanging Iran and North Korea and a "reset" of relations with Russia. But none of them are working.
Regimes in Moscow, Pyongyang and Tehran simply pocket his concessions and carry on as before. The picture emerging from the White House is a disturbing one, of timidity, clumsiness and short-term calculation. Some say he is the weakest president since Jimmy Carter.
The grizzled veterans of the Democratic leadership in Congress have found Mr Obama and his team of bright young advisers a pushover. That has gravely weakened his flagship domestic campaign, for health-care reform, which fails to address the greatest weakness of the American system: its inflated costs. His free trade credentials are increasingly tarnished too. His latest blunder is imposing tariffs on tyre imports from China, in the hope of gaining a little more union support for health care. But at a time when America's leadership in global economic matters has never been more vital, that is a dreadful move, hugely undermining its ability to stop other countries engaging in a ruinous spiral of protectionism.
Even good moves are ruined by bad presentation. Changing Mr Bush's costly and untried missile-defence scheme for something workable was sensible. But offensively casual treatment of east European allies such as Poland made it easy for his critics to portray it as naïve appeasement of the regime in Moscow.
Mr Obama's public image rests increasingly heavily on his extraordinary speechifying abilities. His call in Cairo for a new start in relations with the Muslim world was pitch-perfect. So was his speech in Ghana, decrying Africa's culture of bad government. His appeal to both houses of Congress to support health care was masterly ? though the oratory was far more impressive than the mish-mash plan behind it. This morning he is blitzing the airwaves, giving interviews to all America's main television stations.
But for what? Mr Obama has tactics a plenty - calm and patient engagement with unpleasant regimes, finding common interests, appealing to shared values - but where is the strategy? What, exactly, did "Change you can believe in" ? the hallmark slogan of his campaign ? actually mean?
The President's domestic critics who accuse him of being the sinister wielder of a socialist master-plan are wide of the mark. The man who has run nothing more demanding than the Harvard Law Review is beginning to look out of his depth in the world's top job. His credibility is seeping away, and it will require concrete achievements rather than more soaring oratory to recover it.
I like to read The Daily Telegraph when it is one of the newspapers that get slipped under the door at my hotel in London. I also admit that I do read The Economist fairly regularly, and always when on air travel.
Maybe Edward Lucas is not a familiar name unless you read those particular publications.
Are you finding a commonality to the perception of President Obama that is being missed by his supporters?
President Barack Obama is beginning to look out of his depth
President Barack Obama is beginning to look out of his depth
By Edward Lucas
Published: 8:30AM BST 20 Sep 2009
The Daily Telegraph
Edward Lucas is a British journalist and works for The Economist, the London-based global newsweekly. He has been covering eastern Europe since 1986, and was the Moscow bureau chief from 1998-2002. He is now the central and east European correspondent. He also was the correspondent for The Independent and BBC. He was educated at Winchester College, the London School of Economics and studied Polish at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. He has contributed to several books, including "Why I am still an Anglican" (Continuum 2006). His father is the Oxford philosopher John Lucas, and he is married to the columnist Cristina Odone. Edward Lucas's latest book, "The New Cold War", appeared in 2008.
It is lovely to feature in other people's dreams. The problem comes when they wake up. Barack Obama is an eloquent, brainy and likeable man with a fascinating biography. He is not George Bush. Those are great qualities. But they are not enough to lead America, let alone the world.
Mr Obama's public image rests increasingly heavily on his extraordinary speechifying abilities.
Admittedly, the presidential to-do list is terrifying. The economy requires his full-time attention. So does health-care reform. And climate change. Indeed, he deserves praise for spending so much time on thankless foreign policy issues. He is tackling all the big problems: restarting Middle East peace talks, defanging Iran and North Korea and a "reset" of relations with Russia. But none of them are working.
Regimes in Moscow, Pyongyang and Tehran simply pocket his concessions and carry on as before. The picture emerging from the White House is a disturbing one, of timidity, clumsiness and short-term calculation. Some say he is the weakest president since Jimmy Carter.
The grizzled veterans of the Democratic leadership in Congress have found Mr Obama and his team of bright young advisers a pushover. That has gravely weakened his flagship domestic campaign, for health-care reform, which fails to address the greatest weakness of the American system: its inflated costs. His free trade credentials are increasingly tarnished too. His latest blunder is imposing tariffs on tyre imports from China, in the hope of gaining a little more union support for health care. But at a time when America's leadership in global economic matters has never been more vital, that is a dreadful move, hugely undermining its ability to stop other countries engaging in a ruinous spiral of protectionism.
Even good moves are ruined by bad presentation. Changing Mr Bush's costly and untried missile-defence scheme for something workable was sensible. But offensively casual treatment of east European allies such as Poland made it easy for his critics to portray it as naïve appeasement of the regime in Moscow.
Mr Obama's public image rests increasingly heavily on his extraordinary speechifying abilities. His call in Cairo for a new start in relations with the Muslim world was pitch-perfect. So was his speech in Ghana, decrying Africa's culture of bad government. His appeal to both houses of Congress to support health care was masterly ? though the oratory was far more impressive than the mish-mash plan behind it. This morning he is blitzing the airwaves, giving interviews to all America's main television stations.
But for what? Mr Obama has tactics a plenty - calm and patient engagement with unpleasant regimes, finding common interests, appealing to shared values - but where is the strategy? What, exactly, did "Change you can believe in" ? the hallmark slogan of his campaign ? actually mean?
The President's domestic critics who accuse him of being the sinister wielder of a socialist master-plan are wide of the mark. The man who has run nothing more demanding than the Harvard Law Review is beginning to look out of his depth in the world's top job. His credibility is seeping away, and it will require concrete achievements rather than more soaring oratory to recover it.
Speaking of tools...Originally posted by: Pens1566
I'm sure you were right ... unless it was about marginal tax rates or how US Reps. are apportioned
You're continuing to make jonks point for him. Please, keep posting.
jonks had no point other than to defend the indefensible.
jonks
Lifer
- Feb 7, 2005
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Damn, world not fixed in 8 months in office. Hope change LOL!
If Obama is "out of his depth", what exactly was Bush? The "fonzie" tough guy approach did really well...in not preventing NK from goint nuclear, in doing nothing to foment change in Iran, in unifying the impression of America as a bullying empire...
jonks
Lifer
- Feb 7, 2005
- 13,918
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Originally posted by: TheSkinsFan
Speaking of tools...Originally posted by: Pens1566
I'm sure you were right ... unless it was about marginal tax rates or how US Reps. are apportioned
You're continuing to make jonks point for him. Please, keep posting.
jonks had no point other than to defend the indefensible.
It's ok that you still haven't responded. I think everyone gets the point by now.
- Feb 8, 2001
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To stay a bit more on topic and to offer an analysis too long to provide intact here (avoiding the wall of text that drives the illiterate insane as well) we might as well look a bit to one of the foundations of Obama's "academic" approach to governance.
Highly recommended for graduate students in political science who might not get this level of insight into why things are going so wrong, why they have regularly gone so wrong and why they are likely to keep going so wrong when the academic "policy approach" is attempted in the real world.
From the inaugural issue of National Affairs -
Number 1 ~ Fall 2009
Obama and the Policy Approach
William Schambra
William A. Schambra is the director of the Hudson Institute's Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal. Prior to joining the Hudson Institute in January of 2003, Schambra was director of programs at the Bradley Foundation in Milwaukee. Before joining Bradley in 1992, Schambra served as a senior advisor and chief speechwriter for Attorney General Edwin Meese III, Director of the Office of Personnel Management Constance Horner, and Secretary of Health and Human Services Louis Sullivan. He was also director of Social Policy Programs for the American Enterprise Institute, and co-director of AEI's "A Decade of Study of the Constitution." From 1984 to 1990 Schambra served as a member of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, to which he was appointed by President Reagan. From 2003 to 2006 he served on the board of directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service.
Highly recommended for graduate students in political science who might not get this level of insight into why things are going so wrong, why they have regularly gone so wrong and why they are likely to keep going so wrong when the academic "policy approach" is attempted in the real world.
From the inaugural issue of National Affairs -
Number 1 ~ Fall 2009
Obama and the Policy Approach
William Schambra
William A. Schambra is the director of the Hudson Institute's Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal. Prior to joining the Hudson Institute in January of 2003, Schambra was director of programs at the Bradley Foundation in Milwaukee. Before joining Bradley in 1992, Schambra served as a senior advisor and chief speechwriter for Attorney General Edwin Meese III, Director of the Office of Personnel Management Constance Horner, and Secretary of Health and Human Services Louis Sullivan. He was also director of Social Policy Programs for the American Enterprise Institute, and co-director of AEI's "A Decade of Study of the Constitution." From 1984 to 1990 Schambra served as a member of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, to which he was appointed by President Reagan. From 2003 to 2006 he served on the board of directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service.
You're really not taking this well at all, I'm only trying to help you learn how to debate.
Looks like I struck a nerve though... it's almost like part of you knows just how bad your posts are.
- Feb 8, 2001
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:laugh: Not at all! I was just sharing the last 20 minutes of my reading; the articles seemed right in line with the point I was trying to make. The Schambra piece was interesting but the piece by Sheridan got right to the point without as much verbiage.
I kind of skip around the world press, lately been checking out more references to world op-eds and flippin' through the latest and the greatest in socio-economic research.
Haven't opened a textbook in over 20 years and am only in classes where I am an invited lecturer in corporate and international finance. Sooo, while I really don't know the state of poli sci education, I am still amazed at the gullibility of those who profess to having some knowledge of how the world spins without actually having been a cog, the lubricant nor the impeller in the motor. But now I am not taking you as seriously as you think I ought. :laugh:
That's because you foolishly assume I haven't been around the block a few times before going back to college. Hell, I didn't even start college until I was 26. We'll just chalk that up to yet another thing you don't know much about.
You're right though, you don't know much about political science. If you did, you wouldn't post what you do. Like I said before, please read over what I wrote before. You're not stupid, you've never learned how to make an effective argument and what standards of evidence are. We could sorely use a member of the ultra right that can form a cogent argument around here, and you could be that guy if you just tightened your standards.
- Feb 8, 2001
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Originally posted by: eskimospy
My, my, my. If I knew as much as you do about political science I wouldn't be posting here, would I? I would be Running For Office, working as a minimum wage slave/aide for some Congressman, running a welfare office or a political grant disbursement agency, doing grassroots organizing for ACORN, writing political science textbooks, catching up on Loony Tunes...
What does a poli sci degree get you nowadays? I have no idea. And I have no idea why anyone would study poli sci after the age of 23 unless they were an academic. You can get a better education being a ward boss in Chicago or helping put together a coup somewhere.
Again, ad nauseum, I am not posting to further an agenda but to express my inner desire for clarity. I am not a defender of either the Democrats or the Republicans - though I am seriously concerned by the One Party in power right now - the Democrats.
Why blame the hapless Republicans who lost their way and are still trying to find their way out of the deep dark woods when the Democrats are such obvious targets hopping about and doing chest bumps like scared little bunnies do when faced with a 25mm M242 Bushmaster? And are the only politicians responsible for what is goin on in the country right now. (I do blame the Whigs for some things, though.)
Left, Right, whut's the difference, Jack? Stop spending our money! (Classical Liberal channeling through here.)
I'll leave you to your so-called expertise in effective argument and what standards of evidence are. I'm not a lawyer either! I am just a snowman with a funny smile and a pointy carrot nose. Hehehehe.
Anyway, the sun is still shining of the right coast and my BRAND NEW Shiny All Black Jeep RUBICON (3.8-Liter V6 Engine, 4:1 Rock-Trac 4WD, Tru-Lok Electronic Locking Differentials, Dana 44 Heavy Duty Axles, rock rails, full array of skid plates, and a custom 1000 watt sound system for rap and rock and roll and Beethoven and Wagner and maybe, just maybe, some operetta! Yes, we need Offenbach for this ride!) is outside being warmed up by a couple of teenagers with too much testosterone to trust fully, armed or not, so I cannot linger. And I can see them taking the damn doors off!
I honestly think I am going to put about 500 miles on this baby this weekend, including vertical elevation, more P&N posting fun and games has to wait!!!
But in fairness to the leftish, check out this concurring opinion from one of your personal favorite blog sites - the famous Huff and Puff Post!
(I actually picked the story because of the title. So as to avoid posting another wall of text you can just click on through if you absolutely must. Cliff Note: most of it is your typical left wing bitching about the System - up the revolution, chaps!)
Obama the Impotent
Obama the Impotent
by
Steven Hill
Director, Political Reform Program (poli sci grad, must be!)
New America Foundation
My, my, my. If I knew as much as you do about political science I wouldn't be posting here, would I? I would be Running For Office, working as a minimum wage slave/aide for some Congressman, running a welfare office or a political grant disbursement agency, doing grassroots organizing for ACORN, writing political science textbooks, catching up on Loony Tunes...
What does a poli sci degree get you nowadays? I have no idea. And I have no idea why anyone would study poli sci after the age of 23 unless they were an academic. You can get a better education being a ward boss in Chicago or helping put together a coup somewhere.
Again, ad nauseum, I am not posting to further an agenda but to express my inner desire for clarity. I am not a defender of either the Democrats or the Republicans - though I am seriously concerned by the One Party in power right now - the Democrats.
Why blame the hapless Republicans who lost their way and are still trying to find their way out of the deep dark woods when the Democrats are such obvious targets hopping about and doing chest bumps like scared little bunnies do when faced with a 25mm M242 Bushmaster? And are the only politicians responsible for what is goin on in the country right now. (I do blame the Whigs for some things, though.)
Left, Right, whut's the difference, Jack? Stop spending our money! (Classical Liberal channeling through here.)
I'll leave you to your so-called expertise in effective argument and what standards of evidence are. I'm not a lawyer either! I am just a snowman with a funny smile and a pointy carrot nose. Hehehehe.
Anyway, the sun is still shining of the right coast and my BRAND NEW Shiny All Black Jeep RUBICON (3.8-Liter V6 Engine, 4:1 Rock-Trac 4WD, Tru-Lok Electronic Locking Differentials, Dana 44 Heavy Duty Axles, rock rails, full array of skid plates, and a custom 1000 watt sound system for rap and rock and roll and Beethoven and Wagner and maybe, just maybe, some operetta! Yes, we need Offenbach for this ride!) is outside being warmed up by a couple of teenagers with too much testosterone to trust fully, armed or not, so I cannot linger. And I can see them taking the damn doors off!
I honestly think I am going to put about 500 miles on this baby this weekend, including vertical elevation, more P&N posting fun and games has to wait!!!
But in fairness to the leftish, check out this concurring opinion from one of your personal favorite blog sites - the famous Huff and Puff Post!
(I actually picked the story because of the title. So as to avoid posting another wall of text you can just click on through if you absolutely must. Cliff Note: most of it is your typical left wing bitching about the System - up the revolution, chaps!)
Obama the Impotent
Obama the Impotent
by
Steven Hill
Director, Political Reform Program (poli sci grad, must be!)
New America Foundation
WhipperSnapper
Lifer
- Oct 30, 2004
- 11,442
- 32
- 91
Obama is much more in touch with middle America where people are terrified of losing their health care and where many people cannot afford health insurance or are under-insured than the Republican morons who want to give tax breaks to the wealthy.
LunarRay
Diamond Member
- Mar 2, 2003
- 9,993
- 1
- 76
OMG, who could manage that feat? hmmmm... That fellow who played Jesus?... or the one who played Gladiator.... Did the pope indicate who was the patron saint of TV comedy? Probably Richie... He did direct that movie about the Holy Grail... what was its name... ummm Brown wrote the book.. Getting old..
LunarRay
Diamond Member
- Mar 2, 2003
- 9,993
- 1
- 76
Fiscal Policy - tax breaks - are intended to target a segment for a purpose. It is intended to increase the revenue more than the tax break given. Some Republican ideas are pretty spot on. All depends on where they want to put money and why. I think.
Health care... Read up on Democrat from Mississippi, Gene Taylor. He is conservative as most on the right but he has some interesting and valid points. He'll not vote for the health bill(s) until Medicare can shop for the price of medicine and other points like remove the anti- trust exemption for Health insurance companies [1 yr exemption given in 1946 and they still have it] and use generic drugs and if folks want the named stuff they can pay the difference.
I don't think Obama's Health care wants are best for Middle Americans assuming they still exist. Not sure HR 676 or the Senate proffer are either but HR 676 seems the least problematic.
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