Michelle Obama: Vote on Issues, Not Likeability and Attractiveness

At least they were able to keep Michelle muzzled for a while...

Perhaps she will tour the country signing copies of her Princeton senior thesis...

Or, perhaps Michelle could offer a tour of Rezko properties in the general vicinity of her estate...-

But, in all fairness, if I were married to someone who looked like Curious George, I would probably say the same thing...

As a 47 yr old woman, mother of two and business owner I have been a democrat all my voting life. I waited with baited breath for Obama to pick his running mate. Depressingly, what was chosen was an aging male who doesn't speak my language. Sarah Pallin is what we needed on OUR side. She is my demographic. As I find myself pondering the election, I will vote with my Party. But, Sarah makes it hard for me to even remember Obama's running mates name....is it Joe?

Yeah...to tell the truth, America sort of caused part of the mess.

Like all those groups of insurgents from which Al-Qaeda originated, the CIA trained them and funded them or some stuff to offer resistance against the Soviet Union or something during the Cold War. The whole Iran thing too. I'll admit the Carter admin messed everything up there by supporting a dictator.

One thing that's bugged me is things like the genocide in Darfur. Obama is someone who has strongly supported action to be taken against the Sudanese govt, I don't know about McCain. We said "Never Again" in Rwanda. Yet, the killing is going on before our eyes, once more.

Grey Matter, agreed. The middle east is mess. Personally, I don't think we should have been there in the first place.

The US and Europe were unstable themselves a few hundred years ago, rife with civil wars and bloody conflicts. We just evolved ahead of the rest. Then again, in ancient times, the ancient Chinese and Persian civilisations flourished while we were in the Dark Ages...

Well, even if the US can't please everyone in the world, I believe we can make less enemies.

True, there will be pockets of radicals out there. But we can dry up support for them by giving them less reasons to find fault with us. They feel the US victimised Iraqis. They feel the US unfairly sided with Israel over the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Palin said not so second-guess Israel-something we should never do. We may support them, but we cannot just close our eyes when Israel sometimes indiscriminately caused loss of civilian life.

Those places in the middle east, I think, for them to find peace will require a social evolution over a long time, which we will not be able to see happening right now.

zen, that's what polls do, they go up and down. They are unreliable.

Michelle made unnecessary comment.
This is her 2nd gaffe.

Already americans started to recognize Palin.
her favorablity is dropping and unfavorability is going up after 2 weeks.

Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Afganistan. . .
they will never be stable, ever.

That area of the world has been like that for centuries, and it will conitnue, for centuries.

I wish it were that easy in Iraq, but I don't see that happening anytime soon...

The surge has contained the violence for now, but in the long run, I don't think Iraq will be stable for a while.

If you look at our history and the history of European countries, the transition to democracy from theocracy, monarchy, dictatorship and whatnot was bloody and took place over hundreds of years in civil wars and conflicts. But yet our democracies are the most stable ones compared to Asian countries. No foreign interference helped throw out a rogue govt, our people rebelled themselves in the Anglo-American war.

In a democracy, you need many other institutions to support it. A free media is one. An open culture is another.

Such things cannot be transplanted, and I think that is the mistake we made. We underestimated the sectarian divisions that were hidden by Saddam's iron grip on power. Iraq was first under colonial rule, then under a dictatorship. People's mindsets also need to evolve to keep in step with the times to support a democracy. A sudden paradigm shift like what we did in Iraq has left it with shaky foundations.

In the US, we transitioned slowly ourselves without a sudden regime change. To rise up to fight and rebel, I think, people's mindsets had to believe in democracy, which is why the democratic institutions in our country are more strongly upheld and preserved.

No one will convince radical-Islam or Hamas to stop killing Americans or our allies. Not Barrack Obama, or John McCain. They are fighting a Holy War and it is their way or the high way.
Sorry to use a cliche, but that is what they believe.

We can not convince our enemies to stop hating us. I don't care who the president is. The best we can do as Americans is offer them a better way of life. If they choose to reject it, we brush off our feet, and move on.

If i want to choose between judgment vs. experience, I definitely choose judgment.

And for sure, in economy, Maccain has zero, or minus judgment.

Look which kind of advisers he has.... Phil Gramm was his economy Guru until he made a whiner comment.

Hmm...I don't know.

I do want a change from the whole approach the US has viewed the world. The whole problem of radical Islam. It's not black and white, but from what Palin said, it was "terrorists hell-bent on destroying America...", it seems pretty polarising. Obama had said that we had to recognize the different nuances of their intents, and that we couldn't just lump them all together.

I mean, I don't think everyone's out their to get America, they're just unhappy with how they feel America has imposed their will on them. McCain goes "I will be Hamas' worst nightmare!"

I don't need him to be anyone's worst nightmare. To stamp out radical Islam, we must have the support of moderate Muslims. I would like us to be able to win our enemies over so we won't have to start a war to get rid of them. In my opinion, if talking to the enemy is the way we can do that, I don't mind. We are in no way conceding to them, we are just fighting with words instead of guns.

Once the Iraq war is over, and we have rebuilt their country, they will owe us.
They are very rich in oil, they will foot that bill, not us.

Afganistan and Pakistan, that's another sstory.

Same old Joe.

That is a lot to think about, but I think Barrack Obama has distanced himself now from Hillary Clinton so much so that some of her ex-campaign staff are now supporting McCain.

I do not think Barrack is prepared for foreign policy, not that things are great now. But I think McCain is favored on that issue.

They're footing the trillion over dollar bill for Iraq though. And charging interest.

They'll be expecting us to pay back their loan.

China, won't be handing a bill to anyone. Unless they want our free trade agreement dissolved, which, will destroy their economy.

I don't know if the US (and the rest of the world too) can survive four more years of a snowballing deficit, an economy run into the ground and a streched military. There are other factors such as the rise of China and Russia.

Plus four more years is such a long time...

What's to say Obama won't give Hillary a position in his cabinet?

Are you the same Joe or another Joe? :o

As to the taxes, we have no choice. Somebody has to get rid of the deficit before China hands us a bill with more than twelve zeroes and counting.

At least, with govt regulation, they can limit profiteering. Plus McCain's plan only snowballs the deficit and does not alleviate at least a portion of it.

If we want to prepare for future conflicts with Iran/Russia, whatever, we need a strong economy to fund it. Any military in any country imposes a cost, and it needs to be paid for.

Grey Matter, understood. I think McCain will only be a four year term.
Hillary will run in 2012, and we will all be ok.