Obama’s Senate Experience: 143 Days - Page 3

MC.no.spin · 07-18-08, 11:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by the makeout hobo

To be fair, has McCain ever led anyone through a crisis?

Yes, he has.

Quote:

...
I remained in solitary confinement from that time on for more than two years. I was not allowed to see or talk to or communicate with any of my fellow prisoners. My room was fairly decent-sized—I'd say it was about 10 by 10. The door was solid. There were no windows. The only ventilation came from two small holes at the top in the ceiling, about 6 inches by 4 inches. The roof was tin and it got hot as hell in there. The room was kind of dim—night and day—but they always kept on a small light bulb, so they could observe me. I was in that place for two years.

As far as this business of solitary confinement goes—the most important thing for survival is communication with someone, even if it's only a wave or a wink, a tap on the wall, or to have a guy put his thumb up. It makes all the difference.

It's vital to keep your mind occupied, and we all worked on that. Some guys were interested in mathematics, so they worked out complex formulas in their heads—we were never allowed to have writing materials. Others would build a whole house, from basement on up. I have more of a philosophical bent. I had read a lot of history. I spent days on end going back over those history books in my mind, figuring out where this country or that country went wrong, what the U. S. should do in the area of foreign affairs. I thought a lot about the meaning of life.

It was easy to lapse into fantasies. I used to write books and plays in my mind, but I doubt that any of them would have been above the level of the cheapest dime novel.

People have asked me how we could remember detailed things like the tap code, numbers, names, all sorts of things. The fact is, when you don't have anything else to think about, no outside distractions, it's easy. Since I've been back, it's very hard for me to remember simple things, like the name of someone I've just met.

During one period while I was in solitary, I memorized the names of all 335 of the men who were then prisoners of war in North Vietnam. I can still remember them.

One thing you have to fight is worry. It's easy to get uptight about your physical condition. One time I had a hell of a hemorrhoid and I stewed about it for about three days. Finally, I said, "Look, McCain, you've never known of a single guy who died of a hemorrhoid." So I just ignored it as best I could, and after a few months it went away.

The story of Ernie Brace illustrates how vital communication was to us. While I was in the prison we called "The Plantation" in October, 1968, there was a room behind me. I heard some noise in there so I started tapping on the wall. Our call-up sign was the old "shave and a haircut," and then the other guy would come back with the two taps, "six bits."

For two weeks I got no answer, but finally, back came the two taps. I started tapping out the alphabet--one tap for "a," two for "b," and so on. Then I said, "Put your ear to the wall." I finally got him up on the wall and by putting my cup against it, I could talk through it and make him hear me. I gave him the tap code and other information. He gave me his name--Ernie Brace. About that time, the guard came around and I told Ernie, "O.K., I'll call you tomorrow."

It took me several days to get him back up on the wall again. When I finally did, all he could say was, "I'm Ernie Brace," and then he'd start sobbing. After about two days he was able to control his emotions, and within a week this guy was tapping and communicating and dropping notes, and from then on he did a truly outstanding job.

Ernie was a civilian pilot who was shot down over Laos. He had just come from 31/2 years' living in a bamboo cage in the jungle with his feet in stocks, and an iron collar around his neck with a rope tied to it. He had nearly lost use of his legs. He escaped three times, and after the third time he was buried in the ground up to his neck.

In those days—still in 1968—we were allowed to bathe every other day, supposedly. But in this camp they had a water problem and sometimes we'd go for two or three weeks, a month without a bath. I had a real rat for a turnkey who usually would take me out last. The bath was a sort of a stall-like affair that had a concrete tub. After everyone else had bathed, there usually was no water left. So I'd stand there for my allotted five minutes and then he'd take me back to my room.
...
"They Told Me I'd Never Go Home"

I really didn't know what to think, because I had been having these other interrogations in which I had refused to co-operate. It was not hard because they were not torturing me at this time. They just told me I'd never go home and I was going to be tried as a war criminal. That was their constant theme for many months.

Suddenly "The Cat" said to me, "Do you want to go home?"

I was astonished, and I tell you frankly that I said that I would have to think about it. I went back to my room, and I thought about it for a long time. At this time I did not have communication with the camp senior ranking officer, so I could get no advice. I was worried whether I could stay alive or not, because I was in rather bad condition. I had been hit with a severe case of dysentery, which kept on for about a year and a half. I was losing weight again.

But I knew that the Code of Conduct says, "You will not accept parole or amnesty," and that "you will not accept special favors." For somebody to go home earlier is a special favor. There's no other way you can cut it.

I went back to him three nights later. He asked again, "Do you want to go home?" I told him "No." He wanted to know why, and I told him the reason. I said that Alvarez [first American captured] should go first, then enlisted men and that kind of stuff.

"The Cat" told me that President Lyndon Johnson had ordered me home. He handed me a letter from my wife, in which she had said, "I wished that you had been one of those three who got to come home." Of course, she had no way to understand the ramifications of this. "The Cat" said that the doctors had told him that I could not live unless I got medical treatment in the United States.

We went through this routine and still I told him "No." Three nights later we went through it all over again. On the morning of the Fourth of July, 1968, which happened to be the same day that my father took over as commander in chief of U. S. Forces in the Pacific, I was led into another quiz room.

"The Rabbit" and "The Cat" were sitting there. I walked in and sat down, and "The Rabbit" said, "Our senior wants to know your final answer."

"My final answer is the same. It's 'No.' "

"That is your final answer?"

"That is my final answer."
...

John McCain, Prisoner of War: A First-Person Account - US News and World Report

mikhail · 07-18-08, 11:43 AM

Try saying experience doesent matter at your next job interview.

partier9 · 07-18-08, 02:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shuamort

Did Bush have any crises as Governor of Texas?

I don't think so and look how he turned out.

partier9 · 07-18-08, 02:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aps

I honestly don't know all his past experiences, but I am not asserting that he doesn't have enough or has enough. You, however, are alleging he doesn't have enough experience in "crisis" situations. My point is that I don't think you have any idea of whether he has been in a crisis. Your cursory description of his past experience leads me to believe this.

Well as far as I know he hasn't been in a crisis situation. If he had he would talk about how he been there and how well he handled it. But I have never heard him talk about anything like that or when I was looked up his experiance nothing came up. So that leads me to believe that he hasn't been in a crisis situation.

Kernel Sanders · 07-19-08, 02:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MC.no.spin

How was his handling of 9/11 a failure?

Where is Bin Laden?

1069 · 07-19-08, 04:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MC.no.spin

I think aps is trying to say that there is a huge omission from your tally of Obama's experience which shows how Obama is ready to lead us through a time of crisis.

Community Organizer.

Oh yeah. This changes everything.

He's passed out turkeys on Thanksgiving, given candy out on Halloween and even arranged for Santa Claus to visit some grocery stores - how can you not see he is fully capable of leading us through a national crisis?

This is ludicrous.
Do you really believe that's what a community organizer's job entails?
Do you actually think that's what Obama did?

Obama has shown through his work in the chicago projects that he can act as a liaison between the classes, a sort of communication broker. A diplomat.
He's ideally suited to being a uniter and a powerful leader, and as far as I'm concerned, he's already proven he's capable of doing that.
This country is divided and stalled, if not irreparably fragmented by Bush's disastrous reign; and it won't go forward again until we unite and get on the same page again.

bhkad · 07-19-08, 04:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by disneydude

The funny thing about this....is that the woman writing the blog didn't do her homework.....Obama has more experience than Abraham Lincoln had when he became President.......

Do not go there. Your boy will suffer badly in the comparison. And because of today's complex world no 143 day Senator would likely have enough experience to run the country.

Obama didn't even distinguish himself in his 17 week Senate stint.

But now he thinks he and his rogues gallery are ready to run the country?

bhkad · 07-19-08, 04:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shuamort

Yes but compared to Washington, Obama would be a shoo-in. Or should we have Robert Byrd be president as he's been in the congress longest? Or should have McCain won the primaries back in 2000 instead of Bush as Bush had only been governor for less than 6 years at the time? This is a really dumb argument any way you phrase it.

Not if you realize we are at war and you love this country. It's not dumb at all.

People who love this country want what's best for it. Not what satisfy their emotional idea of what would be nice.

It would be nice to have a young, Black man who speaks well and stirs us emotionally.

That's not enough.

bhkad · 07-19-08, 05:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aps

Why don't you recite Obama's past experiences to me to substantiate your allegation that Obama hasn't been around long enough to show he can do it.

Quote:

Obama's Global Poverty Act of 2007, passed out of committee just a few days ago

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senators Barack Obama (D-IL), Chuck Hagel (R-NE), and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Congressman Adam Smith (D-WA) today hailed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's passage of the Global Poverty Act (S.2433), which requires the President to develop and implement a comprehensive policy to cut extreme global poverty in half by 2015 through aid, trade, debt relief, and coordination with the international community, businesses and NGOs. This legislation was introduced in December. Smith and Congressman Spencer Bachus (R-AL) sponsored the House version of the bill (H.R. 1302), which passed the House last September.

Barack Obama - U.S. Senator for Illinois /

So, he sponsored a bill which calls for US tax dollars to help cut global poverty in half.

Sen. Obama's attitude seems to be, if Bush is going to make Iraq our 51st state, Obama wants to be sure the Iraqis all become Democrats.

Who said Jesse Jackson's kind of politics was out of date? We've got welfare scheming and his buddy Rezko was indicted in Chicago for soliciting kickbacks.

Obama looks like he's trying to organize all the people of the world like he organized people in Chicago, by getting them a welfare check!

The last time the Iraqis voted they proudly held up their purple fingers to show they had taken part in Democracy.

If Obama gets his bill through the Senate, one day the people of the world will vote for King Obama and then they'll hold out their hands to take their part of the payoff he's arranged for you to give them.

Great.

bhkad · 07-19-08, 06:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kernel Sanders

Where is Bin Laden?

Anyone with any knowledge on the subject knows how difficult a manhunt is in complete wilderness when the fugitive knows how to live off the land and is among people who are sympathetic to the idea of his evading capture.

How long did it take the President to find Olympic Park Bomber, Eric Rudolph? And he was here in the United States! Did that make Clinton a bad President?

Quote:

Rudolph was first identified as a suspect in the Alabama bombing by the Department of Justice on February 14, 1998. He was named as a suspect in the three Atlanta incidents on October 14, 1998.

On May 5, 1998, he became the 454th Fugitive listed by the FBI on the Ten Most Wanted list. The FBI considered him to be armed and extremely dangerous, and offered a $1,000,000 reward for information leading directly to his arrest. He spent more than five years in the Appalachian wilderness as a fugitive, during which federal and amateur search teams scoured the area without success.

[...]

According to Rudolph's own writings, he survived during his years as a fugitive by camping in the woods, gathering acorns and salamanders, pilfering vegetable gardens, stealing grain from a grain silo, and raiding dumpsters in a nearby town.[13][14]

Eric Robert Rudolph - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

They never did find Pancho Villa. Did that make Woodrow Wilson a bad President?

Quote:

The Hunt for Pancho Villa

United States President Woodrow Wilson responded to the Columbus raid by sending 6,000 troops under General John J. Pershing to Mexico to pursue Villa. (Wilson also dispatched several divisions of Army and National Guard troops to protect the southern US border against further raids and counterattacks.) In the U.S., this was known as the Punitive or Pancho Villa Expedition. During the search, the United States launched its first air combat mission with eight airplanes.[7][8] At the same time Villa, was also being sought by Carranza's army. The U.S. expedition was eventually called off after failing to find Villa, and Villa successfully escaped from both armies.

Pancho Villa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia