tch tch, lets keep it on the civil track please

My lack of interest in rhetoric and closed minded bullying by those who seem to think their opinion is the only one that counts (an attitude that seems prevalent among those who discuss US politics) is also deep and long lasting

I agree, but I have also found this attitude prevalent as well among those who are seemingly in positions of influence.

Do you mean like sponsors and paid members?

Since when do I have to explain my posts to you? Apply your own interpretation to the actual words I used. You do that anyway.

You don't have to explain your posts to me. It's your choice to let me make my interpretation, or to ensure my interpretation.

If you do not want to ensure my interpretation, why bother communicating?

I agree, but I have also found this attitude prevalent as well among those who are seemingly in positions of influence.

Do you mean like sponsors and paid members?

Not only sponsors and paid members, but others who have posted here who appear to believe that they are above it all. You know the type - haughty, arrogant. An attitude that seems prevalent among those liberal, often politically-correct types.

I was asking chuck what he meant, but since you feel you can answer for him, I will respond to your answer..... I disagree with you; I have always felt that the "haughty, arrogant" attitude came from the right (and I am sure I am not alone in thinking that.....the "right" is well known as the "hawks" (as opposed to the "doves")).

I was not answering for Chuckd, who is quite capable of answering for himself. I was pointing out as clearly as possible for you that your insinuation ignored the primary offenders.

And of course you disagree. No surprise there.

tch tch, lets keep it on the civil track please

It's been about 15 days since you've had to say that. What's changed?

tch tch, lets keep it on the civil track please

It's been about 15 days since you've had to say that. What's changed?

UG's back. He seems to give some of the right-wingers "courage"...... you know, the pack wolf, gang type of courage that is absent when the individual doesn't have backing.

Kudos to UG for that charismatic leadership.

Do you mean like sponsors and paid members?

More uncalled for personal attacks that are apparently being ignored. Has anything changed?

tch tch, lets keep it on the civil track please

It's been about 15 days since you've had to say that. What's changed?

UG's back. He seems to give some of the right-wingers "courage"...... you know, the pack wolf, gang type of courage that is absent when the individual doesn't have backing.

Kudos to UG for that charismatic leadership.

Do you mean like sponsors and paid members?

More uncalled for personal attacks that are apparently being ignored. Has anything changed?

Personal attack??????? I'm speechless at the ridiculousness of that statement.

I should have kept you on ignore.

Yes, good idea. Because my finger is still on the button. I am sick to death of the behavior by SOME individuals and its astonishing how civil discussions were while they were away. Something to bear in mind.

Yes, good idea. Because my finger is still on the button. I am sick to death of the behavior by SOME individuals and its astonishing how civil discussions were while they were away. Something to bear in mind.

Fair go SBK. Where was the "personal attack"? It really WAS a ridiculous statement to make, and I don't see why my response was "behaviour" of any sort.

I notice you didn't keep your word about the 30 days. If I had known you would break your promise, I wouldn't have volunteered for the first 15. It really DOES seem like some members get special treatment.

The question could no longer be whether "Obama can save us all". It might now be "can Obama save himself".

______________________________________________________

Disappointed Supporters Question Obama

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

Published: September 20, 2010

WASHINGTON — It was billed as “Investing in America,” a live televised conversation on the state of the economy between President Obama and American workers, students, business people and retirees, a kind of Wall Street to Main Street reality check.

Multimedia

But it sounded like a therapy session for disillusioned Obama supporters.

In question after question during a one-hour session, which took place on Monday at the Newseum here and was televised on CNBC, Mr. Obama was confronted by people who sounded frustrated and anxious — even as some said they supported his agenda and proclaimed themselves honored to be in his presence.

People from Main Street wanted to know if the American dream still lived for them. People on Wall Street complained that he was treating them like a piñata, “whacking us with a stick,” in the words of Anthony Scaramucci, a former law school classmate of Mr. Obama’s who now runs a hedge fund and was one of the president’s questioners.

“I’m exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantle of change that I voted for,” said the first questioner, an African-American woman who identified herself as a chief financial officer, a mother and a military veteran. “I’ve been told that I voted for a man who was going to change things in a meaningful way for the middle class and I’m waiting sir, I’m waiting. I still don’t feel it yet.”

A 30-year-old law school graduate told Mr. Obama that he had hoped to pursue a career in public service — like the president — but complained that he could barely pay the interest on his student loans, let alone think of getting married or starting a family.

“I was really inspired by you and your campaign and the message you brought, and that inspiration is dying away,” he said, adding, “And I really want to know, is the American dream dead for me?”

The extraordinarily personal tone of the session, coupled with more substantive policy questions from the host, John Harwood of CNBC and The New York Times, reflects the erosion of support for Mr. Obama among the constituencies that sent him to the White House two years ago.

It was all the more compelling coming from such a friendly audience; one questioner, a small-business owner in Pennsylvania, began by praising the president for turning around the auto industry, then lamented: “You’re losing the war of sound bites. You’re losing the media cycles.”

As he leads his party into what many analysts expect to be a devastating midterm election for Democrats, the president faces overwhelming skepticism from Americans on his handling of the economy. A recent New York Times poll found 57 percent of respondents believed the president did not have a clear plan for fixing the nation’s broken economy.

Complete article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/us/politics/21obama.html?_r=1

To be fair why should we expect anything different ? The world came within hours of complete financial breakdown and an economic collapse that would make 1929 look positively affluent. Not sure anyone has a plan to get out of the hole that was not dug overnight by his or the three or four administrations before him.................. Deep shit.

Yes, good idea. Because my finger is still on the button. I am sick to death of the behavior by SOME individuals and its astonishing how civil discussions were while they were away. Something to bear in mind.

Fair go SBK. Where was the "personal attack"? It really WAS a ridiculous statement to make, and I don't see why my response was "behaviour" of any sort.

I notice you didn't keep your word about the 30 days. If I had known you would break your promise, I wouldn't have volunteered for the first 15. It really DOES seem like some members get special treatment.

I am curious. Do you have any specific examples of what you refer to as 'special treatment'?

To be fair why should we expect anything different ? The world came within hours of complete financial breakdown and an economic collapse that would make 1929 look positively affluent. Not sure anyone has a plan to get out of the hole that was not dug overnight by his or the three or four administrations before him.................. Deep shit.

I do not blame the financial crisis on Obama, but the decision to force the massive expenses of health care on the American people - so that he can score a political "victory" - when things are this bad is almost unbelievable.

The other thing that bothers many people is kissing up to our enemies and giving a hard time to our allies. Radical Muslims love us no more than when Bush was President, and our friends are more and more hesitant to trust us. Obama is pretty much proving singlehandedly why people usually turn to conservative leaders during a crisis.

he kissed up to the unions on the auto bail out and screwed the investors, rather than letting the free market systems run it's course. does anyone really believe that if GM would have gone BK that they would be in worse shape than today. At heart he is and always will be a community organizer which imho means he will always look to the producers as the bad guys who have too much.

he kissed up to the unions on the auto bail out and screwed the investors, rather than letting the free market systems run it's course. does anyone really believe that if GM would have gone BK that they would be in worse shape than today. At heart he is and always will be a community organizer which imho means he will always look to the producers as the bad guys who have too much.

Absolutely correct. Obama's understanding of economics is best described in a recent article by George Will:

Sept. 12, 2010/ 4 Tishrei, 5771

Obama's clunker economics

By George Will

Looking back with pride, the British are commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, when Churchill said of the pilots fighting the Luftwaffe: Never "was so much owed by so many to so few." Looking ahead with trepidation, Americans are thinking: Never have so many of us owed so much.

Actually, they owed slightly more when the recession began, when household consumer debt was $2.6 trillion. The painful but necessary process of deleveraging is proceeding slowly: Such debt has been reduced only to $2.4 trillion. Add to that the facts that the recession has reduced household wealth by $10 trillion and that only 25 percent of Americans expect their incomes to improve next year. So they are not spending, and companies, having given the economy a temporary boost last year by rebuilding inventories, are worried. Hence, rather than hiring, companies are sitting on cash reserves much larger than the size of last year's $862 billion stimulus.

Democrats who say that another stimulus is necessary for job creation but who dare not utter the word "stimulus" are sending three depressing messages: The $862 billion stimulus did not work; the public so loathes the word that another stimulus will not happen; therefore prosperity is not "just around the corner," as Herbert Hoover supposedly said (but did not). Consumers and businesses are responding to those messages by heeding Polonius's advice in "Hamlet": "Neither a borrower nor a lender be." Hoover -- against whom Democrats, those fountains of fresh ideas, have been campaigning for 78 years -- is again being invoked as a terrible warning about the wages of sin. Sin is understood by liberals as government austerity, which is understood as existing levels of government spending, whatever they are, whenever. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner recently said that Germans favoring reduced rather than increased state spending sounded "a little bit like Hoover." Well.

Real per capita federal expenditures almost doubled between 1929, Hoover's first year as president, and 1932, his last. David Kennedy, in "Freedom from Fear," the volume in the Oxford history of the American people that deals with the Depression, writes of Hoover:

"He nearly doubled federal public works expenditures in three years. Thanks to his prodding, the net stimulating effect of federal, state and local fiscal policy was larger in 1931 than in any subsequent year of the decade." Barack Obama has self-nullifying plans for stimulating the small-business sector that creates most new jobs. He has just endorsed tax relief for such businesses but opposes extension of the Bush tax cuts for high-income filers, who include small businesses with 48 percent of that sector's earnings. The stance of other Democrats seems to be that the Bush cuts were wicked in conception, reckless in execution -- and should be largely, and perhaps entirely, extended.

Does this increase anyone's confidence? About as much as noting the one-year anniversary of the end of another of the administration's brainstorms.

The used-car market is an important mechanism for redistributing wealth to low-income persons: The price of a car drops when it is driven out of the dealership, but much of its transportation value remains when it enters the used-car market. Unfortunately for low-income people, the average price of a three-year-old automobile has increased more than 10 percent since last summer. This is largely because the Car Allowance Rebate System, aka "Cash for Clunkers," which ended in August 2009, cut the supply of used cars.

Cash for Clunkers provided up to $4,500 to persons who traded in a car in order to purchase a new car with better gas mileage, but it stipulated that the used car had to be scrapped. JWR columnist Jeff Jacoby reports that a study by Edmunds.com shows that all but 125,000 of the 700,000 cars sold during the clunkers program would have been bought even if no subsidy had been available. If this is so, each incremental sale cost taxpayers $24,000.

Even on environmental grounds the program was, Jacoby argues, "an exorbitant dud": The reduction in carbon dioxide from removing older cars from the road cost, according to research at the University of California at Davis, $237 a ton (the international market prices carbon emissions credits at about $20 a ton) and the new higher-mileage cars mean a reduction of carbon dioxide emissions of less than what Americans emit every hour.

Obama is desperately urging consumers and investors to have confidence in his understanding of economics. They may, however, remember his characteristic certitude that "cash for clunkers" was "successful beyond anybody's imagination."

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/will091210.php3

To be fair why should we expect anything different ? The world came within hours of complete financial breakdown and an economic collapse that would make 1929 look positively affluent. Not sure anyone has a plan to get out of the hole that was not dug overnight by his or the three or four administrations before him.................. Deep shit.

Yes that is what Hank Paulson then Treasury Secretary told us all didn't he?

You all are starring into an abyss the likes of which has never been seen before.

You all had better instruct your representatives in Congress & senate to approve the 700 billion bail out toot sweet.Because if we don't pay off that toxic derivatives the world as we know it will end.

Fast forward....We the people say NO our reps vote NO

He then comes back with the likes of Bush & Obama & tells all again what will happen if you don't sign. Senate passes it then sends it back for another try in Congress...Congress

takes another vote & bends to the scare tactic. Basically leaving We The People in a State of Taxation without Representation. After all it is future taxation that will be made to pay back the bail out. Did they come back and ask their constituents first? NO not enough time you know? The world ending and all.

Fast forward yet again to the present day. Has even ONE DOLLAR of that toxic debt been paid or taken care of? ....NO afaik they cannot price it still.

So we were going to implode as a country if we did not sign the bail out to pay off the toxic debts/derivatives....It was not paid off & here we sit....A few more years older & a hella lot further in debt/ reduced dollar power take your pick.

Instead Paulson & his cronies did a bait & switch right after they got the bail out signed instead the money went to the Too Big To Fail Banks.....Oh & one other of course got the big share...Goldman Sachs.. Not a bank by any stretch yet they made out like bandits.

Is it surprising that Hank Paulson was once Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs?

So yes we cannot expect any different now especially when you look at who the top ten campaign contributors were for BOTH Obama & McCain...Reads like a who's who of the Too Big To Fail.

Right wing.....Left Wing...Same facking corrupt bird. Between this hedge bet crisis & the supposed war on terror they bleed this once fine country dry.

VenturaLaw:

George Will's editorial did overlook one benefit of the Cash-for-clunkers.

It took many of the "Obama for President" bumper stickers off the highways.

PS: We can thank Jay Leno for that one.

No, actually, I was feeling generous but you can certainly ascribe it to ulterior motives if it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

The question could no longer be whether "Obama can save us all". It might now be "can Obama save himself".

What scares me is who he is going to be replaced by. Probably by some Republican who would start a war with Iran or Nortth Korea.

Oh well, the world already has too many humans and we need a good blood bath of wipe a few more off the planet.

More information to ponder:

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

By Terence P. Jeffrey

Obama Added More to National Debt in First 19 Months Than All Presidents from Washington Through Reagan Combined, Says Gov’t Data

In the first 19 months of the Obama administration, the federal debt held by the public increased by $2.5260 trillion, which is more than the cumulative total of the national debt held by the public that was amassed by all U.S. presidents from George Washington through Ronald Reagan.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/72404

Nothing to worry about Ian. We won't be able to afford to start a war with Iran or North Korea after Obama is finished destroying America. Problem is that additionally we won't be able to provide a defense if attacked since he is systematically eliminating our ability to respond.

As Charles Krauthammer described the current administration's defense as "Nuclear posturing, Obama-style", he stated:

The naivete is stunning. Similarly the Obama pledge to forswear development of any new nuclear warheads, indeed, to permit no replacement of aging nuclear components without the authorization of the president himself. This under the theory that our moral example will move other countries to eschew nukes.

On the contrary. The last quarter-century -- the time of greatest superpower nuclear arms reduction -- is precisely when Iran and North Korea went hellbent into the development of nuclear weapons (and India and Pakistan became declared nuclear powers).

It gets worse. The administration's Nuclear Posture Review declares U.S. determination to "continue to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in deterring non-nuclear attacks." The ultimate aim is to get to a blanket doctrine of no first use.

This administration seems to believe that by restricting retaliatory threats and by downgrading our reliance on nuclear weapons, it is discouraging proliferation.

But the opposite is true. Since World War II, smaller countries have forgone the acquisition of deterrent forces -- nuclear, biological and chemical -- precisely because they placed their trust in the firmness, power and reliability of the American deterrent.

Seeing America retreat, they will rethink. And some will arm. There is no greater spur to hyper-proliferation than the furling of the American nuclear umbrella.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/08/AR2010040804507.html

So nothing to worry about Ian.

What scares me is who he is going to be replaced by. Probably by some Republican who would start a war with Iran or Nortth Korea.

Don't worry Ian. Maybe Nancy Pelosi will get the job. She is no republican. Her first step will probably be to give every rogue nation and terrorist organization a free nuclear bomb just to make the world a more fair place.

What scares me is who he is going to be replaced by. Probably by some Republican who would start a war with Iran or Nortth Korea.

Don't worry Ian. Maybe Nancy Pelosi will get the job. She is no republican. Her first step will probably be to give every rogue nation and terrorist organization a free nuclear bomb just to make the world a more fair place.

The scary part about weapons is people want to use them and will think up ways to do so. And, that is from a guy who has numerous weapons. Just not ones of mass destruction.

What scares me is who he is going to be replaced by. Probably by some Republican who would start a war with Iran or Nortth Korea.

Don't worry Ian. Maybe Nancy Pelosi will get the job. She is no republican. Her first step will probably be to give every rogue nation and terrorist organization a free nuclear bomb just to make the world a more fair place.

The scary part about weapons is people want to use them and will think up ways to do so. And, that is from a guy who has numerous weapons. Just not ones of mass destruction.

Of all the countries with nuclear weapons today, they haven't been used in 65 years and even then they were just the tiny atomic bombs.

Written by a lifelong Democrat, this pretty much says it all.

Obama is victim of Bush’s failed promises

Posted on July 12, 2010 by parkercountyblog

Here’s an opinion piece by Chuck Green who writes “Greener Pastures” for the Denver Post Aurora Sentinel…one of the more liberal papers in the country. Additionally, Mr. Green is a lifelong Democrat…so this is rather a stunning piece…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Greener Pastures Column — Posted 04/26/10

Barack Obama is setting a record-setting number of records during his first year in office.

Largest budget ever. Largest deficit ever. Largest number of broken promises ever. Most self-serving speeches ever. Largest number of agenda-setting failures ever. Fastest dive in popularity ever.

Wow! Talk about change.

Just one year ago, fresh from his inauguration celebrations, President Obama was flying high. After one of the nation’s most inspiring political campaigns, the election of America ‘s first black president had captured the hopes and dreams of millions. To his devout followers, it was inconceivable that a year later his administration would be gripped in self-imposed crisis.

Of course, they don’t see it as self-imposed. It’s all George Bush’s fault.

George Bush, who doesn’t have a vote in congress and who no longer occupies the White House, is to blame for it all.

He broke Obama’s promise to put all bills on the White House web site for five days before signing them.

He broke Obama’s promise to have the congressional health care negotiations broadcast live on C-SPAN.

He broke Obama’s promise to end earmarks.

He broke Obama’s promise to keep unemployment from rising above 8 percent.

He broke Obama’s promise to close the detention center at Guantanamo in the first year.

He broke Obama’s promise to make peace with direct, no precondition talks with America ‘s most hate-filled enemies during his first year in office, ushering in a new era of global cooperation.

He broke Obama’s promise to end the hiring of former lobbyists into high White House jobs.

He broke Obama’s promise to end no-compete contracts with the government.

He broke Obama’s promise to disclose the names of all attendees at closed White House meetings.

He broke Obama’s promise for a new era of bipartisan cooperation in all matters.

He broke Obama’s promise to have chosen a home church to attend Sunday services with his family by Easter of last year.

Yes, it’s all George Bush’s fault. President Obama is nothing more than a puppet in the never-ending, failed Bush administration.

If only George Bush wasn’t still in charge, all of President Obama’s problems would be solved. His promises would have been kept, the economy would be back on track, Iran would have stopped its work on developing a nuclear bomb and would be negotiating a peace treaty with Israel. North Korea would have ended its tyrannical regime, and integrity would have been restored to the federal government.

Oh, and did I mention what it would be like if the Democrats, under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, didn’t have the heavy yoke of George Bush around their necks? There would be no ear marks, no closed-door drafting of bills, no increase in deficit spending, no special-interest influence (unions), no vote buying (Nebraska, Louisiana).

If only George Bush wasn’t still in charge, we’d have real change by now.

All the broken promises, all the failed legislation and delay (health care reform, immigration reform) is not President Obama’s fault or the fault of the Democrat-controlled Congress. It’s all George Bush’s fault.

Take for example the decision of Eric Holder, the president’s attorney general, to hold terrorists’ trials in New York City. Or his decision to try the Christmas Day underpants bomber as a civilian.

Two disastrous decisions.

Certainly those were bad judgments based on poor advice from George Bush.

Need more proof?

You might recall that when Scott Brown won last month’s election to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts, capturing “the Ted Kennedy seat,” President Obama said that Brown’s victory was the result of the same voter anger that propelled Obama into office in 2008. People were still angry about George Bush and the policies of the past 10 years, and they wanted change.

Yes, according to the president, the voter rebellion in Massachusetts last month was George Bush’s fault.

Therefore, in retaliation, they elected a Republican to the Ted Kennedy seat, ending a half-century of domination by Democrats. It is all George Bush’s fault.

Will the failed administration of George Bush ever end, and the time for hope and change ever arrive?

Will President Obama ever accept responsibility for something…anything?

(Chuck Green is a veteran Colorado journalist and former editor-in-chief of The Denver Post.)

http://parkercountyblog.com/2010/07/12/obama-is-victim-of-bushs-failed-promises/

There is only one possible answer to this piece, Chuck Green must be a racist.

Book unearths divisions over Obama war plan

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's early attempts to seize control of a neglected Afghanistan war yielded a strategy that pleased almost no one and hasn't turned the tide of a conflict near its 10th year.

Just how contentious that plan has been, inside the Obama White House as well as outside, is captured in Bob Woodward's new book. The account exposes the roots of an Afghanistan exit plan driven more by politics than national security and shows the president worried about losing the support of the public and his party.

"I have two years with the public on this," Obama is quoted as saying at one point, referring to what the administration still considers a finite well of public patience.

Such private fears have been aired publicly. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said the United States and its NATO partners must show clear progress by the end of this year or risk a collapse of public support.

The book, "Obama's Wars," reveals that Obama's aides were deeply divided over the war even as the president agreed to nearly triple troop levels in a gamble reminiscent of former President George W. Bush's Iraq war "surge."

"I want an exit strategy," Obama said at one meeting, as he and White House aides groused that the Pentagon brass was boxing him in.

He got one, at least on paper. Obama has said he will begin withdrawing forces in July 2011, an arbitrary date that many in the military see as artificial and perhaps premature.

Privately, Obama told Vice President Joe Biden to push his alternative strategy opposing a big troop buildup in meetings, according to the book.

While Obama ultimately rejected the alternative plan, the book says, he set a withdrawal timetable because, "I can't lose the whole Democratic Party."

Obama's top White House adviser on Afghanistan and his special envoy for the region are described as believing the surge and withdrawal strategy will not work.

Details from the book were first reported by The New York Times, which obtained a copy before its release Monday. The Washington Post also reported extensively on the book by its longtime reporter and editor. It shot to No. 2 on the Amazon best-seller list Wednesday.

Obama was among administration officials Woodward interviewed for the book. It contains previously classified information, including a secret six-page "terms sheet" that a frustrated Obama dictated himself as he tried to bring the generals to heel.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said divisions were inevitable.

"I think that the book portrays a thoughtful, vigorous policy process that led to a strategy to get the best chance of achieving our objectives and goals in Afghanistan," he said. "I can't imagine that any option that the president looked at would not have engendered some debate."

The presidential spokesman would not confirm or dispute the accuracy of any specific quotes in the book. But he denied that the troop withdrawal timeline was based on politics, saying Obama opposed a costly, open-ended war.

"The president wasn't making a political argument," Gibbs said. "The president was making an argument in our national interest."

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell had a copy Wednesday, but declined comment on the substance of the book.

"We are not going to start offering literary criticism," he said.

A NATO spokesman in Afghanistan, German Brig. Gen. Josef Blotz, said the strategy is working and will show larger results by the end of this year.

"Let's be humble and modest," Blotz said. "This is work in progress. We need some more time."

Obama announced his redrawn war plan in December, with a heavy emphasis on his promise to begin withdrawing U.S. forces next summer.

The Obama plan's first major test was an early spring military offensive in the Taliban stronghold of Helmand Province. It was supposed to build momentum for an even more crucial campaign in next-door Kandahar Province, birthplace of the Taliban insurgency.

Neither campaign has gone as planned. Security in the central Helmand River Valley remains iffy, and U.S. forces have had to remain in Helmand in larger numbers than once envisioned. Parts of the Kandahar campaign were put off for months amid signs that local Afghans did not welcome it. U.S. forces are now engaged in heavy fighting in districts surrounding Kandahar City.

U.S. casualties mounted through the year, as the administration and military leaders warned they would. 2010 is now the deadliest year for U.S. forces since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

The Obama administration plans a review of the strategy in December but no major "course correction," as senior officials have put it.

Even after the strategy was announced, however, sharp divisions persisted.

A year after the bruising debate last fall, the administration remains at odds over how to calibrate the U.S. relationship with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. He is seen variously as the linchpin or the Achilles' heel of U.S. chances for even modest success.

The Woodward book says U.S. intelligence found Karzai was manic-depressive and on drugs for it. In Kabul, Karzai's spokesman Waheed Omar said that assertion is baseless and the president takes no medication.

Obama was deeply angered by insulting comments about senior administration officials by aides to then-war commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal printed in a Rolling Stone profile in June. McChrystal was swiftly fired, but the remarks revealed ongoing frustration over what some front-line officers see as micromanaging by Washington.

The new commander, Gen. David Petraeus, has begun to give carefully upbeat assessments of the war. He and other officials have said that only now, with Obama's surge forces finally all in place, can results of the strategy be fully measured.

Obama doesn't talk about "winning," and neither does Petraeus. The general says success should be defined as achieving U.S. and NATO objectives.

Bob Woodward's 'Obama's Wars': 3 heated debates

Woodward's inside look at Obama's Afghanistan War policy isn't even out yet, but the fighting has already started

"Obama's Wars," Bob Woodward's book about the White House's Afghan war policy battle, doesn't hit the shelves until Sept. 27 — but following the publication of excerpts in The Washington Post and The New York Times, it has already sparked several lively conversations in the media:

1. Did Obama "get rolled" by his generals?

The question Woodward's book ostensibly addresses is, "What is America going to do in Afghanistan, and how can it do it?" says Bryan Curtis in The Daily Beast. But the real issue is "whether Obama got rolled by the military." Obama comes across as determined to wind down the war, The Wash. Post says, and repeatedly asks his military chiefs for "an exit plan that they never gave him." So Obama writes "his own war plan to spite them"? says Ed Morrissey in Hot Air. That's rich, given how much "Democrats ripped George W. Bush for supposedly not listening to his generals" in Iraq. Actually, says David Sirota in The Huffington Post, the big scandal is that the generals "quite literally usurped the policymaking powers of the President." Civilian control of the military is "one of the most basic tenets of our Constitution," and the generals ought to be fired for this gross "insubordination."

2. Was the president being "complacent" about another major terrorist attack?

During a conversation with Woodward in July, The Wash. Post reports, Obama said: "We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever... we absorbed it and we are stronger." Those are "stunningly complacent words from the man responsible for stopping such a terrorist attack," says Marc Thiessen at the American Enterprise Institute. "He is effectively saying: An attack is inevitable" and would be "no big deal." Are conservatives really this dense, or just sickly "obsessed with gloom-and-doom scenarios"? asks Doug Mataconis in Outside the Beltway. Of course we can "absorb" a terrorist attack, and "the same sort of 'we can take it' tough talk" was called "American optimism" when Bush used it "virtually every day he was in office."

3. Wait... the CIA has a 3,000-strong "secret" army in Pakistan?

Among all the "sketchily sourced stories of interpersonal sniping within the administration," says Justin Elliott in Salon, Woodward drops some actually important news, like the revelation that the CIA funds and directs a 3,000-strong "covert army" of "elite, well-trained" Afghans that "conduct highly sensitive covert operations into Pakistan" to kill or capture Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters. That's an "explosive" finding, but hardly surprising, says Luis Martinez at ABC News. Looking at the Predator drone strikes, "it's no secret that the U. S. wants to see an end to the safe havens" across the porous Afghan-Pakistan border. These so-called Counterterrorist Pursuit Teams are classic CIA, says Spencer Ackerman in Wired. But while they solve one problem — how to fight an enemy in "politically or militarily unfeasible" territory — history is full of deadly examples "that the U.S. can't control those proxy forces" once they are trained and armed.

The issue about Obama being indifferent to another terrorist attack is just plain silly, but the one about him kissing up to the enemy is not.

Do you mean like sponsors and paid members?

More uncalled for personal attacks that are apparently being ignored. Has anything changed?

Are you stirring shit again there Georgie?