POLJUNK

The Washington Times (owned by the Rev. Moon, no?) is probably the only major "news" source with less credibility than FOX News.

Derek - It looks like you have a quote that is outside of the box.

I think that the only "credibility" that Voight has would be restricted to his supporting roles in the "National Treasure" movies--which is more than enough said.

It should be noted that all charges against William Ayers have been dropped . . .because of prosecution misconduct, not because of innocence; Ayers has admitted to planning and carrying out bombings, and the only reason he's not a mass murder is that his group was so incompetent they blew themselves up first.

The only real problem I have with Voight's Op-Ed is his thoughts on Obama's association with the radical extremes of our society such as Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, William Ayers and Rev. Michael Pfleger. If Obama has indeed distanced himself from these extremists because he disagrees with their ideologies, than that is growth and maturity. If his distance if born from political expediency, that is expected.

Few would question JFK’s youthful associations (politically, anyway). Like many, I once thought this man was a great leader, and in some ways he was as with his conservative economic stance, the support of the space race, his devotion to patriotism and support of a strong military. But he failed miserably in the Bay of Pigs, lacked real moral judgment, escalated the Viet Nam conflict and brought the world to the edge of a nuclear holocaust, only to capitulate to the Soviets initial demands. Hardly a stellar leader. Let’s face it, Senators make poor presidents; especially the young ones.

Obama scares me for his lack of experience and poor judgment, as evidenced in his opposition to the surge in the Iraq war, which has proven itself successful. Presidents need to be strong militarily but must also listen to their generals and not try to push politics on to military operations. This is what Johnson did and over 58,000 U.S., military died as a result. A strong military makes diplomacy work. PLEASE, read your history. Every major U.S., conflict in the modern era was born from the belief, right or wrong, that the leadership of our country would be unable or unwilling to use the military. We can’t afford that perception, real or imagined.

Finally, I find it sad that intelligent folks like Derek Phillips find it so difficult to enter any discourse, public or private, without resorting to a litany of sophomoric vulgarity. "WTF" and "steaming turd" feed the lowest brow and undermines the power of your ideas. You’ve got the talent to raise the bar, Derek. Avoid verbal garbage and you serve society. Resort to it and your ideas will be tossed to the gutter with the rest of the trash.

"Obama scares me for his lack of experience and poor judgment, as evidenced in his opposition to the surge in the Iraq war, which has proven itself successful."

So, what measure of success did the surge accomplish? Overall violence in iraq is down, but what political goals (the state purpose of the surge) have been accomplished?

I have never doubted the ability of our military to over power anyone, let alone a rag tag outfit like the Iraqi army and the gang of thugs who filled the void left when that army was beaten. In fact, I said years ago that the military had accomplished it's goal in iraq, which was to overtrow Saddam Hussein and disarm his military. I disagreed with the decision to do so, but the fact remains that those objectives were achieved. So, can we declare "victory" and get out now? No, because there's no "victory" against terror anymore than there's victory against offensive language or bad jokes. Terror isn't an enemy, it's a tactic.

And as for my own language on this site...piss off. I use language to make a point. Vulgar words are no less effective than any others. The image of a steaming turd is exactly what i wanted to conjure up. This site is designed to encourage conversation and people actually TALK like that.

Funny thing is I would probably agree with you in other forums, like modern fiction, that are seeming to rely more and more on shock language than story construction and plot development. But that's not what we do here. We sometimes call things as we see them and that's not always a pretty picture.

Thanks for chiming in, Thomas.

What i read was that the surge didn't work, but it was timed to coincide with massive bribing of Sunni tribal leaders which totally did work.

"Every major U.S., conflict in the modern era was born from the belief, right or wrong, that the leadership of our country would be unable or unwilling to use the military." Nonsense. It might have been the case that opponents did not believe the US would act militarily, but to say the wars were "born from" this belief is silly. Was the prime motivation of the Spanish in 1898 to keep hold of Cuba, or was it simply random aggression because they didn't fear American military intervention? Besides, if we can't afford even the perception that we might be unwilling to use the military, we should be starting wars left and right, which is both impractical and reprehensible.

This is so typical of you leftist/socialists. all that you know how to do is attack the messenger instead of deal with the facts. No wonder that everytime a marxist type is in office the nation gets an education and then a new generation learns what freedom and liberty that the Constitution protects is all about. You guys are here to just be the negative indicator.

Thanks for all you do

Hey James, great example of how to not "attack the messenger instead of deal with the facts." The fact of the matter is Voight wrote a really, really shitty Op-Ed. I see you've decided against defending it and instead focused on attacking liberal scum like me for even thinking of critiquing this slop.

I would think you have better arguments than that. I'd genuinely like to hear them if you do.