<DIV>Obama cannot be president for two reasons.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>1) He is a Muslim with Obama and Hussein in name when we are war with Osama and Hussein, both Muslims. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>2) Hilary is going to get the nomination.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Hilary Clinton and probably Wesley Clark with be the ticket in 2008. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>If Bush and Cheney are impeached, I think who ever takes their place may win reelection.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Best,</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Donovan<BR><BR><B><I>Pat Kraut <pkraut@moscow.com></I></B> wrote:</DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">I wouldn't count on that dem stuff...Reid has insulted the military and<BR>others way too far.<BR><BR><BR>----- Original Message ----- <BR>From: <NICKGIER@ADELPHIA.NET><BR>To: <VISION2020@MOSCOW.COM><BR>Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 9:55 AM<BR>Subject:
[Vision2020] Barack Obama and Reinhold Niebuhr<BR><BR><BR>Greetings:<BR><BR>It is possible that America will elect a president who can talk<BR>intelligently and deeply about fundamental issues, even the theology of<BR>Reinhold Niebuhr??! With the prospect of the Senate going heavily<BR>Democratic in 2008, it looks like America may soon be turning a ideological<BR>corner.<BR><BR>Nick Gier, intellectual mutant<BR><BR>April 26, 2007, The New York Times<BR>Op-Ed Columnist<BR>Obama, Gospel and Verse<BR>By DAVID BROOKS<BR><BR>Sometimes you take a shot.<BR><BR>Yesterday evening I was interviewing Barack Obama and we were talking about<BR>effective foreign aid programs in Africa. His voice was measured and<BR>fatigued, and he was taking those little pauses candidates take when they’re<BR>afraid of saying something that might hurt them later on.<BR><BR>Out of the blue I asked, “Have you ever read Reinhold Niebuhr?”<BR><BR>Obama’s tone changed. “I love him. He’s one of
my favorite philosophers.”<BR><BR>So I asked, What do you take away from him?<BR><BR>“I take away,” Obama answered in a rush of words, “the compelling idea that<BR>there’s serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain. And we should be<BR>humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we<BR>shouldn’t use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction. I take away ...<BR>the sense we have to make these efforts knowing they are hard, and not<BR>swinging from naïve idealism to bitter realism.”<BR><BR>My first impression was that for a guy who’s spent the last few months<BR>fund-raising, and who was walking off the Senate floor as he spoke, that’s a<BR>pretty good off-the-cuff summary of Niebuhr’s “The Irony of American<BR>History.” My second impression is that his campaign is an attempt to thread<BR>the Niebuhrian needle, and it’s really interesting to watch.<BR><BR>On the one hand, Obama hates, as Niebuhr certainly would have,
the grand<BR>Bushian rhetoric about ridding the world of evil and tyranny and<BR>transforming the Middle East. But he also dislikes liberal muddle-headedness<BR>on power politics. In “The Audacity of Hope,” he says liberal objectives<BR>like withdrawing from Iraq, stopping AIDS and working more closely with our<BR>allies may be laudable, “but they hardly constitute a coherent national<BR>security policy.”<BR><BR>In Chicago this week, Obama argued against the current tides of Democratic<BR>opinion. There’s been a sharp rise in isolationism among Democrats,<BR>according to a recent Pew survey, so Obama argued for global engagement.<BR>Fewer Democrats believe in peace through military strength, so Obama argued<BR>for increasing the size of the military.<BR><BR>In other words, when Obama is confronted by what he sees as arrogant<BR>unilateral action, he argues for humility. When he is confronted by what he<BR>sees as dovish passivity, he argues for the hardheaded
promotion of<BR>democracy in the spirit of John F. Kennedy.<BR><BR>The question is, aside from rejecting the extremes, has Obama thought<BR>through a practical foreign policy doctrine of his own — a way to apply his<BR>Niebuhrian instincts?<BR><BR>That question is hard to answer because he loves to have conversations about<BR>conversations. You have to ask him every question twice, the first time to<BR>allow him to talk about how he would talk about the subject, and the second<BR>time so you can pin him down to the practical issues at hand.<BR><BR>If you ask him about the Middle East peace process, he will wax rhapsodic<BR>about the need to get energetically engaged. He’ll talk about the shared<BR>interests all have in democracy and prosperity. But then when you ask him<BR>concretely if the U.S. should sit down and talk with Hamas, he says no.<BR>“There’s no point in sitting down so long as Hamas says Israel doesn’t have<BR>the right to exist.”<BR><BR>When you
ask about ways to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, he<BR>talks grandly about marshaling a global alliance. But when you ask<BR>specifically if an Iranian bomb would be deterrable, he’s says yes: “I think<BR>Iran is like North Korea. They see nuclear arms in defensive terms, as a way<BR>to prevent regime change.”<BR><BR>In other words, he has a tendency to go big and offer himself up as Bromide<BR>Obama, filled with grand but usually evasive eloquence about bringing people<BR>together and showing respect. Then, in a blink, he can go small and<BR>concrete, and sound more like a community organizer than George F. Kennan.<BR><BR>Finally, more than any other major candidate, he has a tendency to see the<BR>world in post-national terms. Whereas President Bush sees the war against<BR>radical Islam as the organizing conflict of our time, Obama sees radical<BR>extremism as one problem on a checklist of many others: global poverty,<BR>nuclear proliferation, global
warming. When I asked him to articulate the<BR>central doctrine of his foreign policy, he said, “The single objective of<BR>keeping America safe is best served when people in other nations are secure<BR>and feel invested.”<BR><BR>That’s either profound or vacuous, depending on your point of view.<BR><BR>=======================================================<BR>List services made available by First Step Internet,<BR>serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.<BR>http://www.fsr.net<BR>mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com<BR>=======================================================<BR><BR><BR><BR>-- <BR>No virus found in this incoming message.<BR>Checked by AVG Free Edition.<BR>Version: 7.5.463 / Virus Database: 269.6.1/776 - Release Date: 4/25/07 12:19<BR>PM<BR><BR>=======================================================<BR>List services made available by First Step Internet, <BR>serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994. <BR>http://www.fsr.net
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