Positive Obama thread

fwiw  lots of repug chatter on Barack's missing thesis paper from Columbia. It seems Barack does not have a copy of the paper he wrote  25 years ago. Discussion has resurfaced again after great discussion back in July:

Journalists began hounding Columbia University for copies of the musty document. Conservative bloggers began wondering if the young Obama had written a no-nukes screed that he might come to regret. And David Bossie, the former congressional investigator and "right-wing hit man," as one newspaper described him, took out classified newspaper ads in Columbia University's newspaper and the Chicago Tribune in March searching for the term paper.

So what does the missing paper say, and could it be politically damaging to Obama? The Obama campaign won't offer any guidance since it says it doesn't have a copy. Spokesman Ben LaBolt wouldn't even say whether Sen. Obama threw out his copy or lost it.

So we turned for answers to the former professor who graded the now-elusive paper. His former professor, Michael Baron, recalled in an interview with NBC News that Obama easily aced the year-long class. Baron described the paper as a "thesis" or "senior thesis" in several interviews, and said that Obama spent a year working on it. Baron recalls that the topic was nuclear negotiations with the Soviet Union.

"My recollection is that the paper was an analysis of the evolution of the arms reduction negotiations between the Soviet Union and the United States," Baron said in an e-mail. "At that time, a hot topic in foreign policy circles was finding a way in which each country could safely reduce the large arsenal of nuclear weapons pointed at the other ... For U.S. policy makers in both political parties, the aim was not disarmament, but achieving deep reductions in the Soviet nuclear arsenal and keeping a substantial and permanent American advantage. As I remember it, the paper was about those negotiations, their tactics and chances for success. Barack got an A."

Baron said that, even if he could find a copy of the paper, it would likely disappoint Obama's critics. "The course was not a polemical course, it was a course in decision making and how decisions got made," he said. "None of the papers in the class were controversial."

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/07/24/1219722.aspx

usually folks looking for barack's thesis also want to see a copy of his birth certificate which can be found here:

http://www.politifact.com/media/img/graphics/birthCertObama.jpg

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almost a post without sarah but no not quite.

seems the ethics investigation she opened up against herself to circumvent the legislative one has broadened the net and is looking in to other ethics violation complaints that are coming forward.

monegan filed a personal suit yesterday.

it seems sarah's house was built at the same time the hockey center in wasilla was and by the same contractors that also built a house for ted stevens. sarah and ted were close until july 2008.

it was these contractor gifts for political favors that ted stevens is on trial for.

more investigations for sarah.

who would have thought we would ever get so much northern exposure?

little ggggggggggggggggggg! - hey girl, i wrote a long post to you last night, it went pouf and i left...lol...

the bradley effect was very real...it was 26 years ago, times and the racial make-up of our country is very different. i have read a few good articles about the bradley effect and today's election and if that is the last hope for not seeing barack obama elected president well

that is pretty lame...

the inquiring minds will probably be looking for michelle obama's thesis next , fwiw...

Obama is our next President!!!!  Obama '08..its almost here!!!!

laters   laurap

Did you see the news report about the Sport Center building in Wasilla, and the Palin's home is not a mile from it and built by the contractor who built the sports center? Evidently, Palin was able to eliminate building permits for Wasilla. Only permit, is apiece of paper to be turned in that gives the completion date. It appears that Palin had much to do with the contract award, and getting her house built a year before the sports ctr was started. And there was some remark about her ties to Stevens. Also, she evidently got someone on a gas/oil committee she was on, thrown off, because of questionable "ethics," the same questionable "ethics" she uses now as governor of Alaska. Hmmmmmmmmm? Can the truth be ferreted out in less than 20 days?

Do you think she could stop talking like Bushy, with the gotchas, gonna's makin'--dropping the g on all the ing words. Can't believe she actually made it through college and earned a BA in Journalism. Frightening, how unfertile her mind is--think she might have had a lobotomy and no one knows about it? I think she's sneaky smart, but no real intelligence. Her answers to questions posed by other journalists are answered just as poorly as the Couric interview questions. We can't have this woman become President. What are these Republicans thinking? 

djd,

is the movie being released as a comedy, ok make that black comedy??????

Cherryl

Good one, Cherryl!!

About Prop 8 in CA--the ads wanting us to vote no (and reverse the CA Supreme Court decision) talk about children in the second grade being taught marriage & now teachers will be forced to teach about gay marriage--I have one question: Does anyone remember being taught about marriage in your 2nd, let's ad 3,4,5,6,7,8+ grades? Never learned about marriage in school at all. Amazing how these negative ads prey on peoples' fears and lack of truthful knowledge! Oh, and being "older," I have to say that my 30 year old daughter was never taught "marriage" in elementary school--and I know, because I was a parent aide in all her classes at least once a week or more. The teachers would have told us about that for sure!

I don't think I can stomach "W." After 8 years, even if it was a comedy--with black humor LOL, I just can't even think about paying $8.00 to see what I lived through for the past 8 years. It's been all I could do to watch SNL when Bushy was impersonated, and that computer commercial--too real!

You sleep well too, Donna. From another really really left leaning liberal who thinks health care needs socialization in this country and lives in the forest, making her own bread most of the time, and gardening and living in shorts and thongs type of sister. 

How about the rest of you?  

I just have to add this...I seen a thread about the "Undecided" I have been wondering who are these people are and HOW on earth can you be undecided at this point???  Maybe uninformed, but undecided??  I was going to ask...but I thought I better not stir their pot. It just dosn't make sense to me.  What do you think?

g

I posted this on the undecided thread, but thought I would also post it here. There are some great minds here, and I would love to have us ponder this for a while and think about how each of us feels. Gosh, I just think we need new job descriptions for some of our federal government positions!!

Doesn't it seem a little scary and "outdated" that we have an election coming up where the resume for a candidate to run doesn't require much formal education? And most professors can't get a job teaching at a 2yr college (here in CA) without the minimum of a Masters' Degree? AND Administrators (like Pres, VP, Provost, Dean) at the same colleges almost always nowadays have a PhD? There's something wrong with this picture!

It just bothers me that the Republicans are running two candidates with very little college/university education, and from what I understand only "C" grades to boot.

Any feelings about this?

Just seems like things have changed since our Constitution and Bill of Rights were written. Those gentlement were self-educated; most having college background with classes like Latin, Ethics, Philosophy. Shouldn't our minimum "requirements" for Pres and VP of the US be updated and upgraded? Even Administrative Assistants (big words for Secretary) often require a BA degree in a related subject. Certainly Journalism would not be a related subject for VP would it?

In fact, I worked for a well-known department store years ago. I trained 3 managers with another fellow, and we did all the work assignments for 6 departments and about 30 employees, because the "managers" didn't know how to work it out. Duh! This fellow and I finally went to personnel, and asked if we could split the management position, as we were not only doing work assign, we were calling the buyers, and ordering all the products needed in: Toys, Sporting Goods (ski-winter, camp-summer), Cameras, Luggage and several more I can't think of now. The response from personnel was: Oh, no; we couldn't possibly do that. You need to have a BA degree--to work as a low-level manager for one store out of 15. Sad, that our highest job in the land has little education requirement! 

I'd love to hear what others think.

....

Now people are basing their vote on the fact that some poor intern put Indiana in the wrong place on a map and they couldn't cue up some t-shirts on a tv show.  Because the show host is an Obama supporter they presume that this has some importance to his issues. I would think that for all the blunders on the Repub side that they would be careful about making those connections.  I just don't get it.

By the way.  Canada voted yesterday.  Stephen Harper (our prime minister, conservative) was re-elected with a minority gov't, but more seats than the previous minority.