Barack Obama: Undercover Terrorist

[Xavier]

Pretty sure Edwards withdrew from the race gracefully to secure himself the VP nod the last time around.

[Sho]

Pretty sure Edwards withdrew from the race gracefully to secure himself the VP nod the last time around.

Yea pretty much. He did get one or two votes before he went VP tho, I remember.

[khain]

if someone posted this before me... cool I didnt read the last pages

OSAMA
OBAMA

DO YOU SEE IT? PLASTIC SURGERY OH CHRIST ALERT THE PRESSES

[Sho]

if someone posted this before me... cool I didnt read the last pages

OSAMA
OBAMA

DO YOU SEE IT? PLASTIC SURGERY OH CHRIST ALERT THE PRESSES

>_>

[khain]

....what

[Yeargdribble]

I've heard the Osama/Obama comparison from several halfwits across the internet already. I figured idiotic people would bring up things like his middle name. However, as much as I think Fox News is despicable... I didn't think they would actually get into this 4th grade mentality of what is essentially name calling.

It seems like they (and their viewers) seem unaware that Muslim is NOT a race. It's a religion. Just because his father was a Muslim doesn't mean jack really. People need to get off it.

What is it about the US wanting to elect people that are perfect. Dumb shit like a few divorces are predicted to screw Rudy's chances and stuff like Barack's dad (on top of him not being white) will screw his.

Why do we have to have a white, male, wealthy, spotless, married president. I actually wish we could vote for someone like Bill Clinton knowing all we know about him. Why is it all the dumshits want a president who makes them feel even more inferior and out of touch.

Why can't we have a well educated person be president that is also susceptible to the flaws the rest of us are? Why does it matter if they inhaled or fucked some chick or had an affair?

[khain]

I've heard the Osama/Obama comparison from several halfwits across the internet already. I figured idiotic people would bring up things like his middle name. However, as much as I think Fox News is despicable... I didn't think they would actually get into this 4th grade mentality of what is essentially name calling.

It seems like they (and their viewers) seem unaware that Muslim is NOT a race. It's a religion. Just because his father was a Muslim doesn't mean jack really. People need to get off it.

What is it about the US wanting to elect people that are perfect. Dumb shit like a few divorces are predicted to screw Rudy's chances and stuff like Barack's dad (on top of him not being white) will screw his.

Why do we have to have a white, male, wealthy, spotless, married president. I actually wish we could vote for someone like Bill Clinton knowing all we know about him. Why is it all the dumshits want a president who makes them feel even more inferior and out of touch.

Why can't we have a well educated person be president that is also susceptible to the flaws the rest of us are? Why does it matter if they inhaled or fucked some chick or had an affair?

Robots for president please, and I hope you know I was only kidding about the names.

[Marquisate]

I've heard the Osama/Obama comparison from several halfwits across the internet already. I figured idiotic people would bring up things like his middle name. However, as much as I think Fox News is despicable... I didn't think they would actually get into this 4th grade mentality of what is essentially name calling.

It seems like they (and their viewers) seem unaware that Muslim is NOT a race. It's a religion. Just because his father was a Muslim doesn't mean jack really. People need to get off it.

What is it about the US wanting to elect people that are perfect. Dumb shit like a few divorces are predicted to screw Rudy's chances and stuff like Barack's dad (on top of him not being white) will screw his.

Why do we have to have a white, male, wealthy, spotless, married president. I actually wish we could vote for someone like Bill Clinton knowing all we know about him. Why is it all the dumshits want a president who makes them feel even more inferior and out of touch.

Why can't we have a well educated person be president that is also susceptible to the flaws the rest of us are? Why does it matter if they inhaled or fucked some chick or had an affair?

Because most people are jaded and disenchanted with politics and don't want to spend the time necessary to become really informed on the candidates and the issues they support. They're busy with jobs, school, their social lives, and they don't want to spend the time on boring and complex discussions about those issues.

We live in a hyper-individualized culture where people are insulated from each other and isolated from a feeling of community by private homes, personal appliances, a lack of public facilities and public places for people to congregate and develop a feeling of community. This is particularly prevalent in the suburbs. As a result, people don't form a feeling of community, and don't get involved in local politics. If they don't feel an urge to get involved in politics which actually affect their lives and change their neighborhood or community, and they don't get to feel the joys of civic involvement on a small scale, how can we expect them to care about larger issues?

The Republican party is, in my opinion, largely responsible for the downfall of the political process in this country. They preach that government fails at everything that it does, that people should focus more on their private lives, and they've breeded a near-consensus that the government is a continually-blundering body of idiots who can't effectively administer any implement of social policy. As a result, people become increasingly disenchanted and disinterested in the political process and the only people who come out to vote are the hardcore social policy nuts who have a pet cause - abortion, gay rights, religion in schools, tax cuts, etc. Their corruption and incompetence over the last 20 years haven't reversed this impression - they've only strengthened it, and they've cut out funding and public relations support for institutions they don't like (the EPA, for instance, which is only able to clean up a fraction of the hazardous Superfund toxic waste sites each year, and is forced to approve many dangerous industrial substances with only cursory oversight because of a dearth of funding), making their "failures" all the more prevalent.

I digress. In short, most people form their impressions about political candidates based on small pieces of information, soundbytes and "gut instinct" which is usually woefully off the mark. They passively catch a few bits of information, most of which is either smear from the opponent or a few soundbytes from the candidate themselves, and try to form a working impression of what the candidates stand for. Our individualized consumer culture and the Republican PR machine discourages them from bothering to learn more. You simply can't have a properly-functioning electoral system when people are so uneducated about policy issues.

In that context, personal "flaws" (which are always brought up in these situations) factor heavily into people's consideration because they are frequently-discussed and widely-known, and people don't have much else to go on. How many people on this board or around the world have said they'd never vote for Hillary because of "how she acted" when Bill Clinton was President? How many of those people can articulate the policy differences between her and Obama (or will be able to when the campaign has come into clearer focus?) Few, if any. Moreover, people don't like admitting that they don't know anything about the candidates - it's a humbling experience to admit that you don't really have a factually-based opinion. In that sort of vacuum, people would rather have an uninformed opinion than adapt to ambiguity.

[Xavier]

Well said.

Though I don't think you can completely ignore the "gut reaction" aspect of politics either.