If you are a legacy (dad and granddad were admirals) graduate of Annapolis, with multiple disciplinary infractions

Hey! Lets not make fun of legacies (at any University) who had disciplinary infractions* . . . some of them turn out okay!

*The pipe burst on its own; I didn't realize it was after hours in the girls dorm because I don't own a watch; I don't know how the curtains caught on fire; the beer was not mine; and I swear to God the horse was dead when we got there.

Obama definitely knows that or he wouldn't have said, in so many words, to lay off.  As I said before, Obama won't lose this election, his followers will lose it for him.  He's actually a very intelligent man and if the loose cannons would do what he wanted rather that go off on various tangents he'd win.  Since I can't see people doing that, he's toast.

Judge warned Palin in 2005 to back off brother-in-law's job

I still don't understand what this "Marxist direction" you think he's going take us in. Care to elaborate?

Sure.  Here are a couple of articles I’ve read that lead me to that belief.

http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2008/04/barack-obama-kar l-marx-with-twist.html

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/05/obama_black_liberatio n_theolog.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/opinion/14kristol.html?_r= 3&ref=opinion&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=s login

***************

Really? Those articles make you think he wants a Marxist society. Socialized medicine and an increase in the capital gains tax? The second article actually makes a connection between the books in Rev. Wright"s church bookstore and Obama wanting a Marxist society. Please.

Edited to add: The third article makes the claim he wants a Marxist society because of his "god, guns and gays" comments. I'm flabbergasted. I can't believe you actually read that and buy it.

" IMO, I feel Obama would lead this country in a Marxist direction."

I've said this before, but the only way Democrats are close to marxism (or closer to marxism than Republicans are) is the same way Manhattan's east side is closer to Los Angeles than the West side  is.

Saying that some voters may be swayed by marginal hot-button issues like gun control or religious issues like abortion and gay rights into voting for a political party that will carry out policies that the same voters would have otherwise voted against is not marxism.  It's not "Religion is the opiate of the masses". not even close.  It's just frustration at political opportunism on the other side of the aisle.

Proposing publicly funded programs to improve infrastructure is not marxism. Unless you want to declare (for instance) the large railroad programs to tie the east and west coasts of the US  together in the late 19th century a triumph of american marxism.

You want to know what Marxism would be?

It would be taking all these failing megabanks, turn them over to the government and nulling out the shareprice. Throwing the owners and executives in jail and pouring their salaries back into the banks. Same with every other company where executives think they can get off scot free after running the jobs and savings of thousands into the ground.

It would be saying fuck you to the insurance sompanies, giving everybody government guaranteed health insurance and then have the IRS collect the costs from the employers. 

It would be making sure that a sizable chunk of the profits from government lands and natural resources (such as logging in national parks and oil drilling) go directly into the national treasury instead of the pockets of private enterprise.

It would be putting an end to tax exemptions for churches (except for documented community work)  and specialized laws to allow sexist hiring practices (No women priests in the catholic church, what's that about?)

It would be telling the executives and owners of the military industrial complex that "thank you very much, but although your company is of vital service to our nation, you personally are not, so we'll just own it, shall we".

Those top 1 percent who own practically everything? Well, they now own a condo in Florida and a nice government pension and that's it.

That's not even going into the really bad shit of authoritarian communist regimes.

There are a lot of ideas in marxism (no matter how you feel about marxism as a whole)  that showed flaws in applied capitalism and showed, for those who were willing to listen, like Bismarck, how to avoid the conditions that ultimately led to the communist revolutions and the regimes that followed.

If one took marxism seriously as a way of presenting a perspective on the mechanisms that governed economic interactions and society as a whole.

In Europe, the biggest lesson Marx taught us, was how to avoid a communist revolution. The underlying ideas of "Bismarck Socialism" (which is not marxist, but a bourgeois compromise to stabilize society) still might be used to explain  the willingness of the European political right to accept a mixed economy.

But Obama is so far to the right from even the European right on the issue of the size and role of government that to suggest he's a marxist? Please. It's ridiculous.

William - you'll note that he wasn't even able to express it in his own words - he just linked articles.

It's like, as David Cross said, about soccer moms after 9/11 - "I know, I know, I read the bumper sticker, but explain it to me in your own words."

And they rarely can.

William, Howard, the false charges of Obama-as-socialist, Marxist, etc have been run up the flag-pole over and over and when pressed for answers, none have been given, till now, when ultra right-wing commentary links have been provided.

As I said before, Obama won't lose this election, his followers will lose it for him. 

Why, that's ridiculous. It's like putting lipstick on Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham.