"As you know, you go with the president you have, not the president you might want or wish to have"

omega minimo

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Sun Dec-06-09 09:23 PM
Original message

"As you know, you go with the president you have, not the president you might want or wish to have"

"I believe what I said yesterday. I don't know what I said, but I know what I think, and, well, I assume it's what I said."

"It is unknowable how long that conflict the war in Iraq will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months." -in Feb. 2003

"Well, um, you know, something's neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so, I suppose, as Shakespeare said."

"I don't know what the facts are but somebody's certainly going to sit down with him and find out what he knows that they may not know, and make sure he knows what they know that he may not know."

"We do know of certain knowledge that he Osama Bin Laden is either in Afghanistan, or in some other country, or dead."

"We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." �on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction

"Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war."

"As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time."

"Osama Bin Laden is either alive and well or alive and not too well or not alive."

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We -- you and I -- bear some responsiblity. That is the deal. That is the contract of the Constitution. That's why it is hypocrisy when our leaders don't do their sworn duties or we mere citizens pretend we are protected by rights and laws that we do nothing to defend.

And no, sending other people's family members into war is not the extent of our responsibility to defend our rights.

We've reached a point where everyone is SOOOOooooooo clever and savvy now that corporate government and "a silent coup de etat" are evident and banging on Obama is the thing to do. Cowards.

We. Bear. Some. Responsiblity.

I have the luxury of being able to criticize or defend President Obama at whim, because I had a clear-eyed, non-romantic view of him from the first glimpse at the 2004 Dem Convention speech. I saw a Player. I saw a Player giving a speech to an American public that had forgotten "We're All In This Together" -- ever since "Greed Is Good" became the mantra of the nation -- and drank his words thirstily, desperately, ecstatically, even though what he said was not remarkable. It just showed how bad things had gotten.

I saw the corporate media preselect for us voters the two main Democratic candidates. While others bickered over a White/Woman and a Black/Man, I saw two Players, both sending signals that corporate government, the Reaganomics "trajectory" (that Obama praised) and a Clinton Era of floating all boats while promoting globalization, would be the promise of their presidency, whichever one won.

Now Obama is fulfilling my prediction -- except of course he ain't floating all the boats. He has inherited the era that you were prepared for in junior high school: in that exercise where they ask you to imagine who you would put off a lifeboat ... We're there.

I don't know if this nation will ever again have a President who is able to do anything close to what s/he had in mind, when deciding to run for the office. Perhaps the government Of the Corporations, By the Corporations and For the Corporations has a mere figurehead -- a dashing, telegenic, articulate, precedent-shattering figurehead. A mere man, who despite who and what he had to do to get there, does not have all the responsbility, even if he wanted to.

Our nation and its processes were gutted during and by the two previous unelected administrations, their illegal wars and unpunished crimes against We, The People.

We have some responsibility.

We are in the Meyer cartoon -- somewhere in the pile or the sidelines, "just following orders," abdicating responsbility, watching like spectators rather than stakeholders, documenting and carping.

"I would not say that the future is necessarily less predictable than the past. I think the past was not predictable when it started."

Here's what you need folks. You needed 'em then, you need them now. You need to quit feeling so fucking clever when Daily Kos or some asshole writes a twee twitter, glibly gabbing about a coup de 'etat -- as if that's all there is to it.

WE are responsble, WE are the beneficiaries and keepers of the promise of this republic, such as it is. Don't let some clever cyber moron convince you that it's all OVER and you can go back to sleep, because what you never did anything to PREVENT, has actually OCCURRED.

Get off your ass. Put on your gear. Boost your straps. Bear witness. Carp. Believe you ARE THE CHANGE we can believe in.

Ain't nuthin' else left no more.

"Needless to say, the President is correct. Whatever it was he said."

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."

"If I said yes, that would then suggest that that might be the only place where it might be done which would not be accurate, necessarily accurate. It might also not be inaccurate, but I'm disinclined to mislead anyone."

"There's another way to phrase that and that is that the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. It is basically saying the same thing in a different way. Simply because you do not have evidence that something does exist does not mean that you have evidence that it doesn't exist." -on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction

"I'm not into this detail stuff. I'm more concepty."

"I don't do quagmires."

"If I know the answer I'll tell you the answer, and if I don't, I'll just respond, cleverly."