RichardPrins wrote: 
My cat's name is Tobin.  

I am not a neocon nor is my cat.  

THANKS OBAMA!

 kurtster wrote: 
Let's just say all this is true. Okay. I'm not challenging you on any of your prognostications; we're all entitled to think out loud. What you said that is appalling is

 kurtster wrote:  
Which several people pointed to as being out of line (although not out of character for you) and you refuse to address it. That you came to this conclusion yourself is not something to be especially proud of; I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you'd only heard an edit of the speech that had been pre-spun for your consumption, but you actually did it all by your lonesome and somehow thought you'd be given a pass. A) it is unseemly, at best, to be taking a dig at our president for simply making a statement, phrased very carefully so as not to cause further unrest. B) If your takeaway was, in fact, that he was unsure—it's a revealing insight into your (in)ability to listen with anything approaching an open mind.

 ScottN wrote:
Why don't you reread what you responded to.  

  And if I wait to offer a comment after things become "official", then I'm just parroting some partisan pundit.

That wasn't directed at you or anyone else.  It says, if I wait , then I'm ...  It doesn't say ScottN or SFW or mutepoint, or steeler or anyone else.  How you try and make this into a personal attack on yourself is beyond me.

I drew a conclusion based upon the facts that I saw presented.  I didn't shoot from the hip.  If I had, then I would have been wrong, correct ?  Why is it that one is not allowed to draw their own conclusions anymore ?  More of the government knows what is best for you, because you aren't smart enough to know what's best for you or think for yourself ?  I held back on my snark on Obama in my initial post.  I did however answer steeler's question directly.  I didn't mince words or evade the question.

Credibility ?  I assume that I have none in the first place.  Doesn't my position on chem trails kill all of my cred before I get started ?  Doesn't my support of the Tea Party kill all my cred, too ?  Doesn't my position on illegal immigration kill my cred as well ?  Oh and let's not forget my position on Global Warming.  I am a convicted denier afterall ...  Worst of all, I voted for Romney.  Hell, I even worked for Romney during the election.  The horror !

Long ago I decided that I wasn't going to wait for someone to say "Duck" for when the shit hits the fan.  I'm doing my homework so that I will have a clue before it happens. 

 kurtster wrote:
And yet it ends up being mostly piss-poor reactionary-talking-point stenography and/or lies. To take the irrelevant example from your last post:

He's cut Israel loose and left them to defend and decide for themselves.

Cf.:

This appeared in Commentary — the bible of the neoconservatives — and was written by its editor, Jonathan S. Tobin. Tobin, although not well known, is a leading voice in the "Israel can do no wrong" chorus.

In theory, he should be praising Obama for vetoing the resolution. He isn't.

And that is because although Obama vetoed the resolution, he only did so after first attempting to head it off with a statement that still would have criticized settlements. Tobin believes that the president should have simply endorsed Israel's position as if Obama were, say, the editor of Commentary and not President of the United States.

Things could be worse. Had the U.S. not vetoed the resolution it would have been the final signal that this administration really was determined to cut loose the Israelis. But by showing that the veto was cast reluctantly and with ill will, the effect is not much different. So while relations could still deteriorate further, there is no doubt that Obama's negative feelings toward Israel are becoming a serious factor in Middle East diplomacy...

So, to please Tobin and his crowd, the president must not only do whatever the right-wing leader of the Israeli government wants him to do, he must so with enthusiasm.

Israel, for its part, need not do anything the United States wants. For instance, Tobin does not even mention that the United States (which provides Israel with $3.5 billion in aid every year and exempts it from the budget cuts applied to virtually all other programs) asked Israel for a mere 90-day settlement freeze to facilitate negotiations. Netanyahu couldn't even be bothered to respond, even when Obama offered him an extra $3.5 billion to sweeten the pot. (...)

The policy (along with the State Dept. noise) hasn't changed much since then. Maybe nothing but a full-on invasion of U.S. troops into Gaza could satisfy some warmongers...

 kurtster wrote:....
CNN a partisan pundit?  You opined on this before the wreckage had stopped burning.

You may or not be right on whatever conclusion you draw.  But you draw conclusions before facts are gathered, or even given a high degree of credibility.  Why not wait a few hours and be more surely correct instead of looking like a shoot-from-the-hip foregone conclusion maker? But then it's your credibility at stake as a poster, so...

Your shots at Obama are taken for granted.  You are obviously free to express your very well known and repeated ad nauseam opinion.

A saddened soldier.

 steeler wrote: 
I did so because of what is going to be a direct confrontation with Russia over this  This is going straight to Putin.  It was his missile that brought the plane down.  Either the Russians pushed the button or the separatists did, but its still Putin's missile.  My money as I already said is on the rebels pushing the button.  I think that we can safely eliminate the Ukraine gov itsekf, because who would they be shooting at ?  The rebels don't have jets that fly at 30k feet.

Obama will have to deal with Putin on this, no matter what.  I have little faith in Obama standing up and looking Putin in the eye on this, based upon Obama's performance in foreign policy so far.  Obama by his comments and lack of anything further than the two sentences he uttered so far is showing his fear of dealing with Putin.  Obama's red lines mean absolutely nothing.  His words mean nothing.  He has zero cred internationally.  He's cut Israel loose and left them to defend and decide for themselves.  Israel has zero confidence in Obama.

Part of participating in the poly threads is commenting on things as they happen and drawing conclusions.  I want to see if I'm reading things right before the spin and talking points starts.  One cannot trust their sources implicitly.  This is not about a set up for an I told you so down the road.  It about feeling sure enough about things based upon personal observations and the willingness to put them out as correct, not misinforming or deliberately misleading or biased.

I don't know how Obama is going to deal with this.  However, my money is on him hoping to sweep it under the rug and avoid a scene with Putin.  It will be investigated like everything else and the investigation will last indefinitely providing an out for having to comment on it and go on the record with anything, because its an ongoing investigation and I cannot comment about it until the never ending investigation is over.

And if I wait to offer a comment after things become "official", then I'm just parroting some partisan pundit.  I try to speak for myself and avoid copy / paste as much as possible. 

 kurtster wrote: 
It's not due to technicalities.

 kurtster wrote: 
You are the one who brought obama's statement up in your very first post. Presumably , you thought it was important to do so. Now, you are complaining that other posters are focusing on unimportant stuff? Why don't you tell us why you included  that comment about Obama's statement in the first place? 

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
FWIW, I saw Obama speak live.  Because I substituted may for might and omitted terrible makes me substantively wrong, eh ?  I was working from my memory of the live event.

Once again, I am totally wrong about everything I commented on due to technicalities.     

I guess that I owe the community an apology for illegal use of quotation marks with the intent to mislead and deceive. 

So y'all can debate grammar and I'll pay attention to the more important parts of all of this. 

 ScottN wrote: 
I guess that I use better news sources than you do and I trust my personal conclusions better than you do.

So far I'm at least half right ... it was shot down ... we'll know about the other half soon, too.

 US intelligence confirms surface-to-air missile fired at Malaysian plane, divided over origin: WSJ

 Proclivities wrote: 
Context: "Obviously, the world is watching reports of a downed passenger jet near the Russia/Ukraine border, and it looks like it might be a terrible tragedy..." He's saying it "might be" a tragedy because he's not confirming the news, only mentioning it. He could have added some more words like "if the reports are accurate, it is a terrible tragedy" but he didn't need to. Only people who take snippets of speeches and see how they can be manipulated (and those who see/hear the manipulated result) got his meaning wrong.

 kurtster wrote: 
They were questions, and you can't (be bothered to) answer them. I was wondering whether you saw something that I didn't.

Your ad homs and fantasies are irrelevant (as usual).

 RichardPrins wrote: 
So, since I got the part about Twitter wrong, I am wrong.  But how did you know what I was talking about since I was so wrong ?

You are a true student of Alinsky ...  Get em lost in the weeds over technicalities when you can't deal with substance.

You prolly think Bush or Cheney did it anyway ... 

 kurtster wrote: 
Which tweet? Are you talking about the deleted post on the VK social network (which would not be a tweet since it's not Twitter)? Usually there's someone who keeps a screenshot of such controversial messages...

 ScottN wrote: 
Obama's exact words were “It looks like it might be a terrible tragedy...”.  Of course, if Rush Limbaugh is one's primary source of news...

 ScottN wrote: 
We'll see who is correct in due time.  

I paid close attention to the news for several hours before making my comment.  I heard speak of a possible on board explosion.  But the news of the rebel tweet is what I based my conclusion on.  That and the fact that they already shot down two Ukrainian jets earlier this week.

 

 kurtster wrote:How in the world could you possibly know who (or if at this early point—could be an on board bomb) shot down the Malaysian Airliner?
Leave it to you to find blame for Obama somewhere—in this case in his language.  This is real-time.  I interpret tragedy to mean the result of a natural act.
An act of man (while tragic) would be criminal.
Obama was not making an official statement.  That will come after you have informed the parties involved of what has "become pretty clear now". Failing their lack of conviction on your word, I expect a statement to be released after actual facts are determined—with accuracy.

via CNN moments ago 'reports do not exclude the possibility of an on board explosion, either by malfunction or intentional'.

 steeler wrote: 
and that would be ... what ?

If there is any fault or blame to be shared with who shot down the plane, it would be the airline company that let its planes fly over a well known war zone.  The US made the zone off limits to US commercial traffic back in April.

Only as a result of today's tragedy has Germany and France now banned their commercial craft from flying over Ukraine.