well, he said that they are not torturing anymore.

I realize that that's not a whole lot, but it is SOMETHING, since the previous administration actually seemed to embrace torture, while Obama either ended it (at best) or has just publically denounced it (at worst).

Either way, that's something that is better than the previous admin.

Its very surprising, given that Obama is a constitutional expert. There's nothing to indicate in his campaign that he would carry on this way; in fact, just the opposite.

Laws of War. The US is in a state of war with AQ and allies (declared shortly after 9/11). That gives the legal authoritah for military action, regardless of their citizenship (see american citizens fighting for Germany during ww2).

Ofcourse who is a member of AQ or allied group is sort of open to interpretation.

You obviously don't read the site, but just pretend too. I stated all the time that Obama was no different than Clinton, except that the latter was partisan. I backed neither of them, abhored them both over their votes to support the war.

Until I had to choose. And then on whom I thought would be best to:

1) Be partisan

2) respond to pressure in the progressive base

Style?  OK, we agree. When I realized the Dems would win big in '06 and '08, I wanted a partisan progressive, and backed Edwards fwiw. Obama I knew as faking it based on their very good polling (obvious to a hack like myself).

Hell, the entire Democratic political establishment, of which Obama and your chosen candidates are a part of, looks at their base as a burden.

I agree, which is why I have come to abhor the Democratic Political Establishment, of which I am sure you are a part. I'm ready for a revolution in this country that throws out the establishment of both parties.

What's disingenuous is the likening whomever I happened to work for as a political client to what my views are. So, since I worked for about 40 of them, I share all their views?  Of course, that is nonsense.

If I was bitter over anything, it would be that the guys that led Obama's campaign, and on whom Markos and every other hopemonger jumped aboard, Gibbs, Axelrod, Plouffe, were exactly the guys who were trashing what we were building with Dean in 2003. Gibbs, then with Kerry, was certainly the worst. Plouffe was so lost with Gephardt in Iowa but then instituted the murder-suicide. Or Axelrod, whom I got a major laugh out of seeing him morph Edwards into the Change for America candidate in Iowa.

Now, see those are some smart hacks. They learned how they were getting their ass kicked, so when they latched onto Obama, they knew what to engineer. But whats to be bitter about; its nothing but an interesting history.

Obama is a terrible President. Way worse than I ever imagined. He's a disaster for the Democratic Party.

I'm disappointed.

That's a step, iirc the 2nd or soemthing?

I've always argued that there was very little room between Obama and Hillary Clinton on foreign policy, in fact that was the argument of most Clinton supporters (their differences on economic policy were larger). Does the phrase the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen ring any bells? As I recall Bill Clinton's statement had to be turned into a huge controversy to avoid Obama supporters noticing that what he said was true.

The difference was Hillary Clinton was clear about what her foreign policy would be, neither you nor I could have any illusions about it. Obama promoted illusions. So the choice was between the candidate who had enough respect for her base to speak directly to them when she disagreed, and the candidate who chose to obscure his policy with rhetoric. It was not between two fundamentally different approaches to foreign policy.

I'm gonna follow up on this, because it really pissed me off as I reflected on the time. You have no idea how much I was pushing Warner from the progressive side from inside his PAC-future campaign. One of the main reasons I went to work for him was because he didn't carry the baggage of voting for Iraq, and when I'd asked him about it at the get-go, he replied, 'what a big f'ing mistake'. In fact, I'd garner my framing of where he needed to go to win the nomination (anti-war, tar'n Clinton) probably ultimately contributed to his rationale for staying out of the race. And that was fine by me, its not like, with two young kids, I was itching to lose a couple of years of my life inside a 24/7 campaign. Which is exactly why, instead of going to work for Clinton or Obama or any of the others in 2006, after Warner dropped out, I choose to go work for Kerry, and help him with the anti-war effort in the Senate.

Kerry, you'll recall, had an up-down vote on setting a deadline for getting troops out of Iraq that failed in early 2006. It got 11 votes. I set out with his small team to change that equation with setadeadline.com and his large army of a list and his Senate staff. That's what I spent 2007 doing, and pushing for it to become the stance of the Democratic party, and it happend. Then in 2008, worked as a part of 11 Senate winning Senate campaigns, and helping Polis win the open CO House seat. That's what I remember working on in 2008.

But for anon asshats like you, it's all about Clinton vs Obama still.

One regret I certainly have is engaging the assholes here like you throughout 2008 and onward. You can have your fucking shiny Obama object for all I care.