Obama Link

[boagrius]

here is some interesting things I just found out. Apparently the new york post just put out a report that mccain had friendly relations with a female lobbyist in the 2000 election. this info was given by an annoymous source. both mccain and the woman have stated they were only friends, and this should have no berring on the current election but now mccain's trustworthyness is in question. Also new york just had there primary, funny how hilary won 116 to 0, until the mayor came out and said that he voted for obama, suddenly there was a recount and the tally was 116 to 114. the explaination was a miscount. WTF! none of this is in the mainstream media. the senior editor of new york times happens to be campagn contributer to the clintons. in the event of a tie for the democratic national party nomination, the winner is decided by a super delegate. a recent poll was taken and most super delegates seem to support the clintons. I know my numbers may be a little off and my discription may not be worded correctly but you get the jist of what I'm getting at. The clintons aren't going to give up the white house even if they have to get in through the back door.

[MorGrendel]

OK, before I trash Obama, let me just say this: When Ron Paul was asked were he not running, who would he vote for. He responded Dennis Kuchenich. When pressed to pick a front runner he picked Obama because he is an idealist and not a Washington insider. And I agree, so I somewhat dislike trashing Obama because sadly he's the second best candidate. So please don't let my words deter you. I don't like Obama for a lot of superficial things, so please don't take them too seriously.

Fritz, I have been to Obama's site. If you want I can pick his views apart, but I think that will lead to, "yeah, well, that's what you think." Maybe I'll just skim his views on Education, I'm sure he and I are on opposite sides of the fence.

[MorGrendel]

Am I the only one that thought Obama's 'Just words' speech was pompous? To compare why he is running for office to words used to define our Nation or to define Civil Rights, cheapens both Civil Rights and our Nation. Don't quote MLK and the Declaration of Independence, speak your own words, not rhetoric*. To me this sounds like a speech you'd hear Martin Sheen give on the West Wing. I won't even bring up that this was someone else’s speech before it was Obama, or that it is in response to a criticism from the Clin-ton camp.

The Speech: (or at least the 'Just Words' part)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ffwY74XbS4
And here is the speech he borrowed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M6x1H08aFc

I also hate that hands-to-the-mouth-now-point-at-crowd mannerism he picked up in his Presidential Speaking Class. Another mannerism I dislike is how his head is always tilted (probably got this in the same speaking class). Psychology 101 teaches communication and human interactions which it appears he cribbed: Physical - attentive, interested, straight-forward, tilted head, non-threatening and non-threatened.** I also do not like his rapid blinking. Some say it represents a liar as he breaks eye contact, but I am actually more in the camp that says, "Rapid blinking blocks vision and can be an arrogant signal, saying 'I am so important, I do not need to see you'."***

http://changingminds.org/techniques/bod ... nguage.htm

Also I mentioned a Mid-West bias before, to which Fritz responded by remarking that Obama was from Illinois. I would not call Chicago and its Suburbs, rural America. He then when on to mention Obama is from Hawaii, again, I would not classify that as rural America. Nor would I count Indonesia where he did his grade school learning, though I would point out it ranks second in terrorist cells right after Sri Lanka. Your best argument here Fritz is that farm people want to be left alone. They don’t want or trust the government involved in their lives, and hence a big government Democrat is not going to appeal to them. Believe it or not farmers are against farm subsidies. They are hard working people, not looking for handouts from the welfare state. (let me stop before I really get going)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 00962.html
http://www.truthabouttrade.org/article.asp?id=5398 (from WSJ)

I'm also not a bid fan of his preacher voice, and his salvation show antics. I thought when he started the wave that was regrettable. (Though not as bad as Clin-Ton's Clap-Clap, Point-Point dance)
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethi ... tives.html
http://bravenewfilms.org/blog/29198-cla ... oint-point

I am still a little miffed with how the Dems used the Anti-War sentiment to win seats, and have since done nothing. In his victory speech in Texas, Obama promised to end the Iraq war in 2009 and stated he would have the troops home in a year. However, in The Audacity of Hope (2006), Obama wrote that "how quickly a complete withdrawal can be accomplished is a matter of imperfect judgment based on a series of best guesses." Also Obama has advocated war in the other countries, just not "Bush's War".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q54ygIza9s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIum0o-_LZk (I did not know this was a Ron Paul video when I clicked it, but he is really only the quote at the end)

Superdelegates, Really? I can't wait to see who Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson, Dennis Kucinich, and Bill Clinton are pulling for. More than half of your superdelegates are reported to be "Uncommitted and waiting to see what the voters decide." The other half is split between the Obama and Clin-Ton, and so I really don't see any backdoor shenanigans.****

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/ ... t0802.html

Super delegates are another media amalgamation, to make the election SEEM interesting. The Dems like to mix it up, keeps them in the news. McCain is boring, like watching erosion happen. If Obama is dynamic, McCain is stoic. Kinda like Mount Rushmore. He was written off at first because he is old and uninteresting to the pundits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BHKtXyIzn0 (I thought this was a Ron Paul Video, but it's not)

* I think I must also add; words ARE just words. Actions will always speak louder. Events do not need sound bites to be important. Also "All we have to fear...." is a worthless quote. It is from an inauguration speech, and FDR was rambling on instead of giving ways to fix the Great Depression.

**Actually the tilted head is a normal human condition. It is a generally a female mannerism showing coyness and offering courtship. It is also believed that the lengthened neck adds sexuality. Though to be fair it could be a mannerism he picked up from being raised by his Grand Mom. I don't wish to call Obama effeminate, rather I would focus on what I believe is a contrived emotional state.

***Or maybe, "Rapid blinking also flutters the eyelashes and can be a coy romantic invitation." Is Obama trying to sex me up? Not Again! Damn you Perot! Maybe Obama cribbed his wife's notes, which would explain this all away. Also I don't like how they are dressing her and doing her hair to look like Jackie O. However, that may be her fantasy, which in that case, I'm OK with it. Rapid eye blinking is also associated with neurological distress, which I’m guessing is better than an effeminate liar (whoops).

**** Minus 4% that belong to candidates no longer in the race.

[Berserker]

Jeff,
Right now I will address the part about Obama's manierisms and your perception of what certain body language of Obama means. Although that may influence your vote (since everyone is entiteled to dislike whatever they want about a person) in my oppinion it adds very little to an argument against Obama as a potential candidate for presidency. He blinks a lot. Does that mean he'll be a poor president?

In fact, one could argue that if he indeed knows how to move his body properly when speaking (Presidential Speaking Class) that will make him stronger because he will know how to act in different situations to achieve his purpose (be it to calm someone down, get him to like him, to agree with him on an issue, etc). This is a diplomacy skill.

I feel you've thrown too much weight on the psychology behind Obama. I have been studying some psychology myself, specifically body language and human interaction, and you can't assume that you can read a person. Even trained people are wrong a lot. In this case just because he is blinking, it does not mean he's lying or looking down on you. A big lesson of physichology is that you need a baseline. You never look at one item and make a conclusion. You need to follow a person and note how he acts under normal ciscumstances. You also need to look at the current situation for anything that might cause the effect you are noticing. For example, in last night's debate, he was blinking, but if you looked at the paper on his podium, it was fluttering. Perhaps he was blinking because air was blowing on him and was drying out his eyes. Or perhaps he was tired. One thing that body language states is that if a person crosses their arms they are closing off from another person/argument/situation showing disinterest in the person or topic (eg. if the hot girl at the bar crosses her arms, she doesn't like you). However, if it is a cold room, that person might cross their arms because they are cold. Or their arms might be very tired and there's nothing to rest them on, so they cross them to rest them. My point is that you have to be very very careful before you assume something about a person based on body language, and when you do, you must observe multiple items (eyes are blinking, feet are shuffling, he's sweating, he's speaking faster then normal, he keeps covering his mouth, he is twiddling his hands, he's not comfortable in his seat and keeps shuffling, etc) of body language that together may say something about the person.

Here's a neat experiment. Go to a person (try someone that is not very close to you) and do this little game for about 5 minutes. You look at the person and tell them what you notice about them and what you believe about them based on what you noticed. Like this: I *notice* that you are wearing a shirt with a stain on it, therefore I *imagine* that you are a clumsy person. I *notice* that the corners of your lips are downword pointed therefore I *imagine* that you are a very unhappy person. I *notice* that you wear a black metallica shirt and black pants, therefore I *imagine* that you don't like people and hate crowds. The person that you are talking to cannot tell you if you're right or wrong, or react in any way during this drill. At the end of the 5 minutes, he then can tell you how right you were about him, how much of your assumptions were correct. We actually did this at Lockheed Martin with a room full of about 200 people as part of some leadership training stuff. Then end result was that on average the person doing the noticing, was about 50% correct. The point of this exercise is to show that people are inherently bad at judging other people correctly based solely on information gleaned from their body language (and they stressed communication to solve this issue).

I have yet to read the articles and watch the videos on your others points so i will not respond until i was able to do so (i'm still not sure how superdelegates work so i certainly can't speak on the issue).

[MorGrendel]

I agree with everything you say Serban, hense my disclaimer. If Obama came to my home I would not kick him out, rather I would invite him in, offer him a beer, and pick his brain. That response is in response to Fritz's:

Also, there is no need to resort to such nasty name calling. "Smug" and "pompous" have no place in reasoned discussion if you don't back up your feelings with a specific action of the candidate. If you have a reason for doing so, by all means say why. If you're going to insult a candidate's character, do it right.

I was put in a difficult posistion of defending my feeling about a man I've never actually met. Would I not vote for him because of my feeling, probably not, I'm more a platform guy.

I have a hard time putting a finger on it with Obama, I don't think he is a bad guy, just a guy a little too led by his handlers. In opposed to Ron Paul who changes disposition as he talks. He is asked a question, he looks up, thinking, rather than just spouting rhetoric. Ron gets angry, an emotion a president is supposed to have but never show. Ron emplores people to listen, while Obama seems to tell people why he is right. Seem to me that's what Harvard people do, though again in fairness, most of my experience of Harvard comes from Legally Blonde and Legally Blonde 2.

[Fritz]

Thank you Jeff. All of that was very helpful as to understanding where you are coming from. Unfortunately just about everything you see as a negative attribute in his speaking I rather like. Everything about how he speaks to me seems welcoming and inclusive. Of all the candidates, he seems to feel that Americans are the solution. "We are the change we have been waiting for" doesn't sound to me like a guy simply telling us why he's right. That said I'm rather worried about blindly falling head first. The cynic in me keeps saying that he seems almost too good to be true. One of the big things I turn to you guys for is to keep me leveled, being the arch-conservatives so many of you are. In this case it would appear that we're just on a different wave-length.

The clap-clap point-point was God damned hilarious. Stewart and Colbert really went to town on that one. I'm noticing a fairly clear Obama bias in those two shows. Perhaps its the fact that their demo is solidly Obama, or that its just so much easier to make fun of Clinton. Speaking of which WHERE IS MY GRIT-OFF OBAMA?!
http://colbert2008.blogspot.com/2007/11 ... otice.html
It would appear that Clinton is circling the drain and that my previous fear of superdelegates handing the nomination to her on a silver platter was unfounded. Apparently, over 2 dozen superdelegates have come out for Obama recently and 3 have even jumped shipped from Clinton to Obama, with not of his abandoning him. Looks like the democrats aren't willing to shoot themselves in the foot quite yet.

Oh and Jeff I completely agree with you how frustrating it is that the Democrats can to power on a wave of anti-war sentiment and then did nothing. That said, you have to admit it is kind of hard to get anything done when the president vetoes everything you try to do, even compromise bills. That doesn't mean they aren't little chicken shits for backing down. They were too afraid to look like they were weak on national security to have a show down with the president and he knew it. They came in with this our way or the highway approach, and then slowly gave ground, which gave them terrible positioning. What they needed to do was to start off working toward a compromise and shove it down Bush's throat all year. That way they can look like the reasonable ones while making Bush look like the one responsible for the lack of funding because he was being unreasonable.