Who do you expect to be President on January 21st, 2013?

[pbrower2a]

Let's not rule out Dick Cheney...if we lose just one jetliner (though, obviously, I pray we don't), Cheney will be polling even with Obama. 


Don't be silly. And also, Bush still got re-elected after 9/11... One could possibly argue that Bush wouldn't have gotten re-elected if not for 9/11.

this is not pre 9/11...rather it is 2010 and Scott Brown just wont a Senate seat in MA due in part to the fact he ran against Obama giving constituational rights to terrorists.  And if it was a winning issue in MA, how do you think it is going to play in the rest of the country?[/quote[

Botched campaign by his opponent, and health-care reform. Obama actually does reasonably well on dealing with terrorism.

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Who says that we are going to lose a jetliner to a terrorist?  We will, but it will more likely be due to one of the more ordinary causes -- like pilot error. Be more precise in your language lest someone like me call you on the carpet for it.

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I would prefer that Gitmo be available to some of the recent guests of the main jail in Port-au-Prince now giving trouble could be there for "the duration" of the emergency. As for lawyers to defend terrorists, Timothy McVeigh got one. Any problem with that? He left 168 bodes strewn around the site of a terrorist bomb blast in Oklahoma City. The Israelis let Adolf Eichmann have an attorney for his defense for his role in one of the most unspeakable of crimes against Jews.

Oh -- McVeigh was executed for his crime. So was Eichmann for his crimes. Yes, even the most horrible criminal -- the terrorist and the gangster -- deserves the right to an attorney and a spirited defense. Justice must always be a rational process and not a lynch mob.

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Humility, a commodity in rare supply in America, has its value. To whom were we apologizing -- al-Qaeda? Hell no! We are still trying to send it -- to Hell!

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Our best efforts include refusing to create more enemies.

[pbrower2a]

Let's not rule out Dick Cheney...if we lose just one jetliner (though, obviously, I pray we don't), Cheney will be polling even with Obama. 

Don't be silly. And also, Bush still got re-elected after 9/11... One could possibly argue that Bush wouldn't have gotten re-elected if not for 9/11.

I'd actually argue that Bush would have been re-elected in a landslide without 9/11.  Wartime policy galvanized the hardline left against him.  Additionally, wartime economies have crazy swings.  The economy was beginning to improve prior to 9/11 and then it sunk into despair (with help from George Soros saying sell, sell, sell after old grannies pulled out their pensions to invest).  There is also a massive increase in spending that occurs everytime we are involved in some war.  Now, with that said, it would still be likely that we would still have the housing crash, but Clinton, rather than Obama succeeding Bush in office.

Landslide? His domestic policies were terribly unpopular. The people who say that they voted against him because of the climate of fear would generally have voted against him either for his domestic policies or as partisan Democrats, so that means little.

Dubya offered some pretense of "enhanced security" -- never mind that America was no safer. His administration created a climate of fear, and that works to win support for considerable time. If that wanes, then so does the chance of re-election, but he wasn't running for re-election in 2006. People don't support what numbs them.

John Kerry was running on economic issues in a time in which national focus was on the War on Terrorismfor the Glorification of a Shallow Leader, and of course he lost. Had it not been for the bungled war in Iraq, economics would have been the issue, and Dubya would have gone down to electoral defeat as did his father. At the least his father resolved an international mess; Kuwait was liberated and Saddam Hussein's fascist regime was under lock and key.

[pbrower2a]

Until the GOP no longer consists of people who believe that the Earth was created 6000 or so years ago and that humans have no connection to apes but are a special creation; that state-sponsored or politician-directed prayer belongs in public schools; that no human suffering is excessive so long as there is a profit to be gained from it; and that their hangnails hurt more than others' third-degree burns --

Barack Obama.   

[pbrower2a]

Until the GOP no longer consists of people who believe that the Earth was created 6000 or so years ago and that humans have no connection to apes but are a special creation; that state-sponsored or politician-directed prayer belongs in public schools; that no human suffering is excessive so long as there is a profit to be gained from it; and that their hangnails hurt more than others' third-degree burns --

Barack Obama.   

Wonderful, but nobody will care about any of this when 2012 rolls around since there are more important issues at hand.

Ann Richards -- wasn't she a fine Governor!

(an aside -- I remember when George W. Bush mocked the pleas of some condemned inmate about to be executed, and after that, I could only think that someone so contemptuous of life should never be President of the United States. That's not to say that capital punishment in that case doesn't have reasoned defenses, such as that laws and court decisions must have some finality to prevent legal anarchy, but mockery of someone about to die shows a gaping hole in one's moral compass. Do you mock the drinking habits of people with cirrhosis or smoking habits of those dying of lung cancer? I don't). 

I regret to say that I was completely right, as Dubya had a huge gap in his moral compass -- one that would allow him to lie to get a war for his glorification or for the gain of war profiteers (whichever theory you hold). Such would allow thousands of deaths, not only of Americans. He showed another ethical gap when he promoted subprime lending as a means of getting people to buy into the illusion of prosperity (so long as they ignore the cost of the debt they might feel good), and another in his erratic behavior concerning the relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina. Assertions and displays of piety are not enough to negate personal evil; if anything they simply add hypocrisy.   

I actually look forward to Kay Bailey Hutchinson (even if she is a conservative Republican) defeating cranky Rick Perry so that there would be an open seat in the Senate.

Oh, do I miss Lloyd Bentsen in the Senate! Wouldn't it be great if Texas got a Senator like him again? Such a politician would certainly not be a Dubya-like or Perry-like Republican.

[pbrower2a]

Until the GOP no longer consists of people who believe that the Earth was created 6000 or so years ago and that humans have no connection to apes but are a special creation; that state-sponsored or politician-directed prayer belongs in public schools; that no human suffering is excessive so long as there is a profit to be gained from it; and that their hangnails hurt more than others' third-degree burns --

Barack Obama.   

First off, my name refers to an Atlasia game I'm involved in. Second, while I do find your ramble about George W. Bush fascinating, you completely failed to acknowledge and respond to my point. This thread asks who will be President on January 21st, 2013 - not for your opinion of the 43rd President.

Answered in bold!

Does anyone expect the Republicans to change much in nine months? I don't!

[pbrower2a]

I'm curious, what are your Congressional predictions this year, PBrower?

Until today I expected marginal change. Now that the Supreme Court has just ranted unlimited powers to corporations to buy political influence, I expect a huge Republican sweep.

We may now be doomed to a corporate state reminiscent of Mussolini's Italy in which corporations had formal power in the legislative process and democracy was gutted. If you thought that Dred Scott was bad -- that decision didn't take freedom away from the white majority which wasn't sharing power with non-whites, anyway.

This fascism will creep in on little alligator feet, and we won't know what is happening until too late. By 2012, paid-for corporate whores will have even the ability to get legislation that permits them to set up militias to do the dirty work. Alligators do not grow quickly, but they don't un-grow, and their appetites never shrink.

It's too bad that I didn't marry that Irish girl and move to Ireland when I had a chance.

Maybe I ought to take up cigarettes and whiskey so that cancer and cirrhosis can get me instead of some secret policeman or some private militia. Sure, I have MSNBC in the background. In four years it will be no different from FoX News, which will be even more blatant in its sycophancy to a right-wing government than it was when Dubya was President. 

[pbrower2a]

I'm curious, what are your Congressional predictions this year, PBrower?

Until today I expected marginal change. Now that the Supreme Court has just ranted unlimited powers to corporations to buy political influence, I expect a huge Republican sweep.

We may now be doomed to a corporate state reminiscent of Mussolini's Italy in which corporations had formal power in the legislative process and democracy was gutted. If you thought that Dred Scott was bad -- that decision didn't take freedom away from the white majority which wasn't sharing power with non-whites, anyway.

This fascism will creep in on little alligator feet, and we won't know what is happening until too late. By 2012, paid-for corporate whores will have even the ability to get legislation that permits them to set up militias to do the dirty work. Alligators do not grow quickly, but they don't un-grow, and their appetites never shrink.

It's too bad that I didn't marry that Irish girl and move to Ireland when I had a chance.

Maybe I ought to take up cigarettes and whiskey so that cancer and cirrhosis can get me instead of some secret policeman or some private militia. Sure, I have MSNBC in the background. In four years it will be no different from FoX News, which will be even more blatant in its sycophancy to a right-wing government than it was when Dubya was President. 

You don't think you are overreacting just a bit?

Good Lord, may I be gloriously wrong on that!

[pbrower2a]

Yeah, private corporate militias held martial control everywhere before McCain-Feingold

Corporate America has gotten nastier in recent years.

Need I tell you of the bloody labor-management disputes of about a century ago? Corporations actually hired armed thugs to shoot strikers.

Oh, that would take time to occur again, but once Corporate America has complete control it will happen again -- with none but those immediately involved knowing. Strikers will of course be found guilty of murder and be executed. 

Again, may my fears be unfounded.

[pbrower2a]

A Republican that we aren't naming right now.

A stealth candidate presented as a "moderate" because he has no legislative record or an obscure one? Someone now an attorney general or secretary-of-state of a small state?

That just gives the Democrats a great campaign slogan about the stealth candidate:

You know President Obama -- but do you really know (name name)? 

If people are comfortable with Obama in 2012, then they will re-elect him.