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Frazzled wrote:

Melissia wrote:Yes, there's always outliers who get reported on more than they should. If you want to try to argue that they're representative of all Democrats, then you should also be arguing that Curtis Knapp and Fred Phelps are representative of all Christians.

You mean like Al Gore, former VP of the United States? he's no "outlier."

The same Al Gore who thinks he invented the Internet? He IS, WAS, and will continue to be nuttier than a fruit cake.

Melissa's point is still valid.

The current strategy to sabotage everything that might help the American people by the GOP has been done before. It's a decades old strategy that's been done before. Great film footage of Harry Truman calling them out on it and more including Nixon's treason and how Reagan helped the Iranians just to win the election.

When all else fails - do everything you can to sabotage a Democratic president - and make sure the American people hate him at the end of the day - no matter what. In tonight's Daily Take - I'll tell you why that is the real official platform of the Republican Party. Ever since Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously won the office of the presidency four times in a row, the Republican strategy against Democrats has been pretty simple and can be summed up in one word: "Sabatoge." When there's a Democrat in the White House, simply and purely do everything possible to sabatoge his efforts to do anything that will make him look good or will help the American people If President Obama doesn't start channeling his inner Harry Truman, we should all get ready for President Romney - and the super-hard-right-wing Supreme Court he'll bring us.

CT GAMER wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

Melissia wrote:Yes, there's always outliers who get reported on more than they should. If you want to try to argue that they're representative of all Democrats, then you should also be arguing that Curtis Knapp and Fred Phelps are representative of all Christians.

You mean like Al Gore, former VP of the United States? he's no "outlier."

The same Al Gore who thinks he invented the Internet? He IS, WAS, and will continue to be nuttier than a fruit cake.

Melissa's point is still valid.

Yet the Democrats ran him as the Vice President of the United States...mmm you can't say he's an outlier when he was second in command of the Freaking Democratic Party.


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BrassScorpion wrote:The current strategy to sabotage everything that might help the American people by the GOP has been done before. It's a decades old strategy that's been done before. Great film footage of Harry Truman calling them out on it and more including Nixon's treason and how Reagan helped the Iranians just to win the election.

When all else fails - do everything you can to sabotage a Democratic president - and make sure the American people hate him at the end of the day - no matter what. In tonight's Daily Take - I'll tell you why that is the real official platform of the Republican Party. Ever since Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously won the office of the presidency four times in a row, the Republican strategy against Democrats has been pretty simple and can be summed up in one word: "Sabatoge." When there's a Democrat in the White House, simply and purely do everything possible to sabatoge his efforts to do anything that will make him look good or will help the American people If President Obama doesn't start channeling his inner Harry Truman, we should all get ready for President Romney - and the super-hard-right-wing Supreme Court he'll bring us.

Nixon's treason? I was wrong. You're not Bill Maher, you're Bill Ayers...

Maybe they ran him to make all the other Democratic candidates seem more normal?

Al Gore has become more and more extremist as time goes on. Much like the Republican party as a whole I suppose.

Melissia wrote:Al Gore has become more and more extremist as time goes on. Much like the Republican party as a whole I suppose.

That's quite the jump. Former Democratic presidential candidate (that won popular vote) grows more and more extremist. Other party affected.
I wonder what Gore's actual popularity is among Dems today.

I dare you to find a more extreme(ly awesome) president than one President Col. Theodore Roosevelt.

I dare BrassScorpion to reveal to us his true identity as Bill Maher.

Bill Maher wouldn't have used such a poor quality recording in the OP. It's like someone recorded their TV with a camcorder.

Was anyone able to get through that clip?

biccat wrote:Was anyone able to get through that clip?

Nope. Even if the quality were better I can't see it happening.

Frazzled wrote:
Yet the Democrats ran him as the Vice President of the United States...mmm you can't say he's an outlier when he was second in command of the Freaking Democratic Party.

I thought Hillary was Second in command?

Sort of how Cheney was actually calling all the shots from behind the curtain...

AustonT wrote:

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Obama seems to me a center-right moderate in the Clinton model.

I think a lot his foes are painting him as 'extreme' because of the rumors he's part black.

I suppose you used the same metric that convinced you the Washington Post was center right?

Pretty much. His signature accompishment after all is a health-care bill based on long-standing Republican proposals which goes out of its way to enrich private insurers without offering a public option at all, much less the sort of single payer plan that works so well in Canada, Europe and Japan.

His Wall Street regulation was timid and not even close to what the left was pushing.

He said he supports gay marriage but wants it left up to the states. Y'know, just how people opposed segregation back in the day but wanted it left up to the states Sigh. THe rights of a minority should not be left to a vote of majority.

I really have no idea what conservatives think liberalism is, but it ain't this.


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streamdragon wrote:I dare you to find a more extreme(ly awesome) president than one President Col. Theodore Roosevelt.

Franklin Roosevelt set up social security and other New Deal elements. Oh and won World War II.

Truman ended decades of isolation and set up the Cold War order.

Eisenhower ended segregation in the south.

Now those are big foreign and domestic changes.

These days... Well Bush and now Obama have brought us 10+ years of war and domestic survelence but even that is not as extreme as the leaders of the 30s to the 50s.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Franklin Roosevelt set up social security and other New Deal elements. Oh and won World War II.

That's quite spectacular, considering he died before the end of the war.

biccat wrote:

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Franklin Roosevelt set up social security and other New Deal elements. Oh and won World War II.

That's quite spectacular, considering he died before the end of the war.

These things aren't 100% mutually exclusive, are they? He died, what, 2 weeks before the war ended? It was a done deal.

To use an analogy, most people typically credit Reagan with helping to topple the Berlin wall, but he hadn't been president for quite some time when it actually happened.

He died 2 weeks before the end of the war in Europe. Japan went on for several more months, but its a toss up if things would have turned out any different.

LordofHats wrote:He died 2 weeks before the end of the war in Europe. Japan went on for several more months, but its a toss up if things would have turned out any different.

Is it THAT much of a toss up? The only change in outcome would have been the number of dead and possibly the date.
Ultimately he did not win the war; the men who did the fighting and the dying won the war. He lead the country to victory ; there is a difference.

LordofHats wrote:That is ration sensation. I can name several presidents more extreme than Obama. FDR, Lincoln, Jefferson and Adams were on opposite ends and their administrations were giant rubber bands of policy. Hell, Jackson told the SCOTUS to shove it.

Basically this.

Our society loves hyperbole. Not that others didn't, of course they did, but we live in the age of "Halo R0xx0rz, COD Suxx0rz!" Everything is either awesome or terrible in the minds of many.

AustonT wrote:
Ultimately he did not win the war; the men who did the fighting and the dying won the war. He lead the country to victory ; there is a difference.

Its better to say that he was crucial to winning the war. Without Roosevelt in office early on many things would have been different.

AustonT wrote:

LordofHats wrote:He died 2 weeks before the end of the war in Europe. Japan went on for several more months, but its a toss up if things would have turned out any different.

Is it THAT much of a toss up? The only change in outcome would have been the number of dead and possibly the date.
Ultimately he did not win the war; the men who did the fighting and the dying won the war. He lead the country to victory ; there is a difference.

Some have argued that FDR would have never dropped the bomb (which is what I mean).

LordofHats wrote:Some have argued that FDR would have never dropped the bomb (which is what I mean).

I hadn't considered that; and that makes the "FDR won the war" argument problematic. I think it's difficult to say any war has been resolved when later on in the conflictm the use of 2 nuclear weapons were required to finally end it for really realz.

FDR definitely made the war, as it happened, possible; which is something.

Ouze wrote:You missed "mitigating the successful elimination of OBL". I found that the right-wing type people are very quick to make sure that Obama gets minimal-to-no credit for Obama's call to send in the SEALS despite the fact it was a very dangerous call to make politically, and he was roundly ridiculed for suggesting that he would go into Pakistan at all previously.

Yeah, that's a good point.

So far as being "extreme", I've found him to be extremely moderate and middle of the road in all ways.

Definitely. Obama is a middle of the road, consensus kind of guy. That's not just politically, that's his personality type - he looks for ways to compromise with people to produce a result for everyone. That's why he brought forward a Republican plan to begin healthcare reform.

Of course, the Republicans have decided to just ignore all that and pretend Obama is extreme. Hence the stupidity about Obama being the most extreme, it relies on the old trick exaggerating so far that most people will assume part of it is true, and that Obama must be a little bit extreme.

Having a mass of Republican footsoldiers out there willing to believe any nonsense provided it makes the other side look bad doesn't hurt, either.

And I dearly loved your analogy


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Melissia wrote:Al Gore has become more and more extremist as time goes on. Much like the Republican party as a whole I suppose.

Al Gore became more extreme once he left politics. Happens to almost everyone - once you remove the responsibility for having to make real world decisions people slip into easier ideological positions.

Ouze wrote:

LordofHats wrote:Some have argued that FDR would have never dropped the bomb (which is what I mean).

I hadn't considered that; and that makes the "FDR won the war" argument problematic. I think it's difficult to say any war has been resolved when later on in the conflictm the use of 2 nuclear weapons were required to finally end it for really realz.

We would have won the war anyway. At that stage, it was inevitable baring an act of god(s). But I do think there is a possibility that things would have gone differently had FDR not died. Maybe I misrepresented my meaning earlier.

Ouze wrote:

LordofHats wrote:Some have argued that FDR would have never dropped the bomb (which is what I mean).

I hadn't considered that; and that makes the "FDR won the war" argument problematic. I think it's difficult to say any war has been resolved when later on in the conflictm the use of 2 nuclear weapons were required to finally end it for really realz.

If the US hadn't used nuclear weapons on Japan, it's very likely Japan wouldn't have capitulated to a total surrender.

The economic damage to Japan would have likely been worse had we fought to take the home islands.

LordofHats wrote:

AustonT wrote:

LordofHats wrote:He died 2 weeks before the end of the war in Europe. Japan went on for several more months, but its a toss up if things would have turned out any different.

Is it THAT much of a toss up? The only change in outcome would have been the number of dead and possibly the date.
Ultimately he did not win the war; the men who did the fighting and the dying won the war. He lead the country to victory ; there is a difference.

Some have argued that FDR would have never dropped the bomb (which is what I mean).

FDR was ultimately a ruthless man. I'm not saying that as a bad thing, but it doesn't make it any less true. I think Truman agonized over the decision a lot more than FDR would have. FDR might have dropped the bomb on Tokyo.

FDR certainly was extremely driven and arguably hard-headed...

AustonT wrote:FDR might have dropped the bomb on Tokyo.

Unlikely. Tokyo wasn't a good target.

Keep in mind that at the time, we (or at least the political class) didn't really know, or care about, the long-term effects of radiation. They just knew they had an extremely powerful weapon that could level much of a city from a single blast. The value wasn't necessarily in the destruction the bomb caused, but in the psychological value that a single blast could cause. If we can level much of a city with a single bomb, wiping out whole sections of Japan would be next to nothing. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen because they were relatively intact and would better show off the potential of the bombs. Tokyo wouldn't be a good target because we'd already destroyed a good part of the city.

biccat wrote:

AustonT wrote:FDR might have dropped the bomb on Tokyo.

Unlikely. Tokyo wasn't a good target.

Keep in mind that at the time, we (or at least the political class) didn't really know, or care about, the long-term effects of radiation. They just knew they had an extremely powerful weapon that could level much of a city from a single blast. The value wasn't necessarily in the destruction the bomb caused, but in the psychological value that a single blast could cause. If we can level much of a city with a single bomb, wiping out whole sections of Japan would be next to nothing. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen because they were relatively intact and would better show off the potential of the bombs. Tokyo wouldn't be a good target because we'd already destroyed a good part of the city.

It would depend on the symbolic status of the city.
If Tokyo was being thought of as unbeatable no matter how many bombs the US dropped on it, obliterating it with one or two more may well cause morale to drop massively.

purplefood wrote:

biccat wrote:

AustonT wrote:FDR might have dropped the bomb on Tokyo.

Unlikely. Tokyo wasn't a good target.

Keep in mind that at the time, we (or at least the political class) didn't really know, or care about, the long-term effects of radiation. They just knew they had an extremely powerful weapon that could level much of a city from a single blast. The value wasn't necessarily in the destruction the bomb caused, but in the psychological value that a single blast could cause. If we can level much of a city with a single bomb, wiping out whole sections of Japan would be next to nothing. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen because they were relatively intact and would better show off the potential of the bombs. Tokyo wouldn't be a good target because we'd already destroyed a good part of the city.

It would depend on the symbolic status of the city.
If Tokyo was being thought of as unbeatable no matter how many bombs the US dropped on it, obliterating it with one or two more may well cause morale to drop massively.

Tokyo had already been firebombed and was a mass wasteland at the time. More civilians died at Tokyo than Hiroshima.

Frazzled wrote:

purplefood wrote:

biccat wrote:

AustonT wrote:FDR might have dropped the bomb on Tokyo.

Unlikely. Tokyo wasn't a good target.

Keep in mind that at the time, we (or at least the political class) didn't really know, or care about, the long-term effects of radiation. They just knew they had an extremely powerful weapon that could level much of a city from a single blast. The value wasn't necessarily in the destruction the bomb caused, but in the psychological value that a single blast could cause. If we can level much of a city with a single bomb, wiping out whole sections of Japan would be next to nothing. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen because they were relatively intact and would better show off the potential of the bombs. Tokyo wouldn't be a good target because we'd already destroyed a good part of the city.

It would depend on the symbolic status of the city.
If Tokyo was being thought of as unbeatable no matter how many bombs the US dropped on it, obliterating it with one or two more may well cause morale to drop massively.

Tokyo had already been firebombed and was a mass wasteland at the time. More civilians died at Tokyo than Hiroshima.

It's symbolic,. I suppose I could have been more clear and said he might have dropped the bomb on Tokyo too. Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't just picked to scare the Japanese. They were picked so we knew what our toys were capable of and their wartime use. FDR hadn't balked at conventional unrestricted bombing, why should he hold back with a doomsday weapon.

AustonT wrote:FDR hadn't balked at conventional unrestricted bombing, why should he hold back with a doomsday weapon.

We only had two.

I suspect if Japan hadn't surrendered after Nagasaki and we had more, Truman likely would've authorized more bombs to be dropped on strategic sites.