AlexandriaCynic's Comments (7)

“This is one of the most compelling posts I have ever read. Having grown-up in the 1950s in Richmond, Virginia (at that time a segregated, Jim Crow hothouse of racism) I have had friends and family who dishonestly acted color-blind. I have suspected that much of the anti-Obama rhetoric came from from racism but never was I able to articulate it as well as Schaeffer has. I hope everyone everywhere gets a chance to read his post and that some small percentage will get an "aha!" from it. We may be on the verge of a transformational national event--one in which we forever leave behind the racism of our parents and choose rationality over greed and bigotry.

As a political cynic, made so by decades of observing the duplicitousness of Republican politicians and their media water-carriers, I have to hope Obama has really big leads in the polls on November 2nd so the Republicans dare not try again to steal or game the election. I'm starting to think this might just happen. And if Obama's lead in the polls is big enough to give hope to all those who know the vote cagers will be trying to deny them their voting rights, these voters may well turn out in numbers too vast for the best voting machine hackers in the world to fool.

I would gladly vote against McCain and Palin for many reasons; but I look forward to proudly voting FOR Obama.”

“When I read the line about Palin maybe being a good fit as Secretary of the Interior, I had a BGO -- that's a Blinding Glimpse of the Obvious. McCain isn't the brightest bulb in the lamp but he isn't the idiot W is. And he may not be as honorable as he says he is but he probably isn't enough of a traitor to want to stick the country with a President Palin. But there has to be some way that choosiing her to be his running mate made sense to him.
Here's my suspicion -- no factual basis, just a hunch that might make sense. McCain goes to Sarah Palin and makes her an offer she can't refuse: run with him for Veep, take the oath, then immediately resign for family reasons. She can stay in the Administration as Secretary of the Interior, a 40 hour a week job, and let Lieberman be the 120 hour a week Vice President. A McCain Lieberman couldn't win, but McCain Palin has an outside chance. And this deal would be win win for McCain and for Palin.
Honorable? No. But much less despicable than the conventional wisdom that he really thinks she would be an OK President.”

“I have two dogs who are smarter and better informed than Proudbutnotdem. Richard Armitage, a Republican, took the fall for outing Valerie Plame (with a P) thus risking her life and those of her contacts and ruining a valuable CIA operation but the illegal and national security damaging outing was orchestrated by Karl Rove and Lewis Libbie, acting for Bush and Cheney. There was a Democrat , Sandy Berger, who tried to improve his reputation and that of President Clinton by removing some documents but that hardly put anyone's life or any CIA front's efectiveness in jeopardy. And the allegation (at least I think it's an allegation--hard to tell from the ridiclulous syntax) that Democrats leak to CNN any more than Republicans is complete drivel. No committee members or staffers from either side have been accused, much less convicted. Thank goodness Proudbutnotdem is not a Democrat but I queston his/her reason for being proud of anything.”

“I'll speak for myself -- I care so much about who McCain picked because even though I think it unlikely that McCain will win, he might. Who woulda thunk America would elect W not once, but twice? He's a disaster of never-since-Nero proportions yet he's been President for 7 1/2 years! So McCain could win. And if he does, his Veep stands a pretty high liklihood of becoming President. And Sarah Palin is as likely to be an adequate President as Harriet Miers was likely to be an adequate Supreme Court Justice. Dan Quayle was a far less dangerous Veep than Palin and George H W Bush was far younger and in much better health than McCain. This choice is simply mind-boggling. McCain runs on experience and being prepared to keep us safe from terrorists yet chooses someone whose experience runs to terrorist moose(s). She could be PRESIDENT????? ARGH.”

“I'm 58 and I don't think McCain is too old for the job. A clear trend is people living longer and healthier lives. But I am worried about McCain's mental lapses and I wonder if his constant use of the POW-as-her­o-get-out-­of-jail-fr­ee-card for every lapse and gaffe isn't an attempt to keep the not-so-bright media from making a connection: he's not too old but he might have been imprisoned for too long. Not that all POWs have PTSD, but I think I would. Being kept in a cage, treated inhumanely, and tortured must be unbelievably horrific. What effects would that have on anyone's mental faculties? I don't disrespect the sacrifice, but I also don't think we ought to replace all legeslators with POWs. We should honor, respect and care for them. And those who are capable of big jobs ought to get them. But McCain has shown more bluster, anger, bombast, confusion, and memory loss than anything else. I'm not ageist or anti-veteran. But I am scared. Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran isn't an acceptable joke for the Commander in Chief -- especially not if he might not remember that he's supposed to be joking. Wes Clark started to make this point and was immediately shouted down by the media. Isn't it time for someone who cares about our national security to tell the media to shut up and let us ask the question?”

“Well...the­re was an amazing anti-Hillary bent to Chris Matthews' bloviating until David Shuster took a bullet for him; but that doesn't support the notion that she has been unfairly disadvantaged overall. She (Penn?) has run an exceptionally poor campaign and it was her people that played the race card (Bill, Mark Penn, Geraldine, etc.) not Obama's people. Obama will win the nomination because he has run the better campaign, because he's a better candidate, and because he will have far better (or at least far less damaging) coattails. The only way Hillary could win at this point would be by running a 1972-like undercover credentials war -- not just for Florida and Michigan who broke the rules, but all over the country. All but the few overtly pro-Clinton media (that means everyone who is neutral, everyone who is pro-Obama, and and everyone who is pro-republican) would scream bloody murder if places that voted overwhelmingly for Obama all of a sudden had delegates committed to Clinton. She couldn't get away with it the way McGovern did. (She was part of that and so was I...it worked then, but it wouldn't now.)”

“I've been a user of David's stuff for years (my wife for even longer.) We read "Getting Things Done" at least once a year, we attend his seminars, and we've given "Ready for Anything" to all our friends. I've invited one of his disciples to be on my Board of Directors and I'm hoping to engage David to work with my management team next year.

I honestly believe that if I hadn't followed David's advice and process, I wouldn't have a company, much less a management team. Don't get me wrong -- I only do the GTD process about 50% (or less) of the time but that keeps me from being hopelessly and depressingly behind the power curve 100% of the time.

Arianna, good job getting David to post. David, rock on!”