Quote from AAAintheBeltway:
OK, I was right, you are young, but you seem pretty smart as well. I can understand that Obama is appealing. He's youthful, smart, cool and seems to have an answer for everything. The problem is, his answers are neither fresh nor intelligent. They are just the same old appeals to the basest of emotions, envy.
You discussed the economy intelligently. I don't think the Bush administration has done a very good job on the economy either. I recognize however that many of Bush's mistakes, overspending for example, were dictated by political pressures from the opposition. He went along with expensive programs to preempt the democrats from arguing that he was mean-spirited and against the poor. Of course, they did it anyway.
As for the mortgage crisis, can we stipulate there is enough blame to go around? Certainly the administration could have done better, but it is unfair to hold them soley responsible. The crux of the problem is the government sponsored entities, FNM and FRE. Republicans have tried for years to rein them in, but faced the sort of determined opposition from democrats that FNM and FRE's huge lobbying budgets bought. It didn't hurt that these companies' executive ranks are stuffed with former pols, mainly democrats such as the hapless Franklin Raines, who oversaw the disaster at FNM and left with a fortune in stock options loot.
If I thought centrist democrats would be running things, I wouldn't be overly upset. Obama is anything but a centrist however. He clearly is the most far left candidate ever to run for president. He has never held a private sector job, was a community organizer and clearly knows nothing about the economy. He appears to see it in terms of marxist class struggle, an amusingly outdated paradigm.
On security issues, I am on record as being uncomfortable with McCain's belligerency. But what does Obama offer except rhetoric? Hillary was right, he's not the person we want answering the 3 AM phone call. He's untested, unseasoned and basically an unknown.
To me, this all has a sense of deja vu. The 1976 election came against a backdrop of national unrest. An outsider who promised reform and change, Jimmy Carter, was elected. It didn't work out very well.
