Obama apologies again for saying soldiers' lives 'wasted'

[rodeodance]

http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/blogs/politicalticker/

Obama apologies again for saying soldiers' lives 'wasted'

NASHUA, New Hampshire (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is apologizing for saying the lives of the more than 3,000 U.S. troops killed in the Iraq war were "wasted."

During his first campaign trip this weekend, the Illinois senator told a crowd in Iowa: "We now have spent $400 billion and have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted."

He immediately apologized on Sunday, saying the remark was "a slip of the tongue."

During an appearance Monday in Nashua, N.H., he apologized again, telling reporters he meant to criticize the civilian leadership of the war, not those serving in the military...........

[bigluckyfeet]

1. You Don't Have to apologize

For Telling the Truth!

[saigon68]

34. The CHIMP should apologize for KILLING them for OIL

But alas the ASSCLOW will do no such thing

[Solly Mack]

2. No need to apologize to this military family

and other people need never tell this military family what we should be offended by

[Binka]

5. Indeed! n/t

[maryallen]

54. Or this military family ...

Please don't apologize; just speak the truth and you'll be fine, Senator Obama.

[saltpoint]

3. Senator Obama survives this with very minimal flack.

He'll schedule appearances & townhall-type gatherings at VA hospitals and Veterans' retiree homes, and after those interactions, word will get around that he's A-OK.

I think most people think he's A-OK right now.

To hell with the media when they try to fan the flames like this. Not all media are guilty, but the offending parties give Bush and Cheney a free pass and then pile on Democrats as if they'd burned down an orphanage.

[lancdem]

10. I think he handled it fine

[saltpoint]

11. Hi, lancdem.

Just wanted to take a moment here to say I like the way you do business.

[mzmolly]

12. That's a great idea OC.

:hi:

To hell with the media when they try to fan the flames like this. Not all media are guilty, but the offending parties give Bush and Cheney a free pass and then pile on Democrats as if they'd burned down an orphanage.

Indeed, it would appear "ok" to "joke" about missing WMDs, but not to call an un-necessary war of choice what it is. Perhaps Obama should have chuckled after he said it?

"Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere." - "Nope, no weapons over there ... maybe under here?" "Heh heh." ~ GWB

If I were Obama, I'd find a way to slide this "reminder" in to my apology.

Reminder: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yJF13BS-hE

[saltpoint]

13. Thanks, MzMolly, but I like your idea better -- that Obama could

use this in his response to the press.

Handy, tidy, and potent.

Yep. He's a terrific candidate and will be increasingly sure-footed as the next months roll on.

Very nice to see you this afternoon on DU, you good person you.

:hi:
:dem: :dem: :dem:

[mzmolly]

16. Awe,

shucks. :blush: Tis nice to see you always OC.

:hug:

[theaudacity]

15. You only think he escaped it, just wait until late summer '08

It'll be the new "I voted for the $87 billion... before I voted against it."

I hope that isn't the case, but I fear it is.

[saltpoint]

17. I don't doubt that the smear machine will be up and running,

but I think our candidates are looking pretty good right now.

The Rove team had the same smear machine in high gear for Nov. 06 and we still won House and Senate majorities. Ken Blackwell, Mr. Corruption, lost by a landslide in swingstate Ohio.

I'm not disagreeing that there wil be further, and fierce, attacks on our candidates.

But the GOP cannot sustain itself as a viable political entity without ideas, and with only bile. Rove got his boy elected (" ") twice, but his handiwork has undone the party as a whole.

I believe 2008 is going to be a very strong Democratic year.

[caledesi]

25. That doesn't even make sense. TA. Non sequitor. nt

[goclark]

37. He seems to be wonderful with his remarks

He will hit it right on the money right away if he is wrong.

He does really well with all the bullies.

[saltpoint]

38. Yes. He's going to be ok. I think our Dems are going to

fare well against the Thugs in 08.

I think that GOP race is going to get SUPER ugly real, real fast.

[goclark]

43. The CONS are one evil bunch nt

[saltpoint]

51. They are. And they're inept, too. The public statements being made

by announced or potential GOP candidates just sound feeble. Like the first thing somebody says when they are abruptly awakened in the middle of the night.

And their full French kiss of Bush's Iraq policy -- even after the Baker/Hamilton report -- is going to come back to haunt them big time.

[maggiegault]

4. They WERE Wasted

Obama needs to stop playing the semantics game with the GOP losers.

Speak from your heart, and know that military families agree with you. Those lives WERE wasted for LIES.

Instead of focusing on the words, why don't these GOP idiots focus on the tragedy of that?

[CJCRANE]

6. At least Obama has some kind

of sadness or remorse for the loss of life (unlike *).

[patrice]

7. Don't back down Barak! It IS the truth.

Or - at minimum - their lives are not wasted, but ARE sacrificed to some indeterminant objective that we do not recognize in the current environment and ergo have NO control over, so to all and intents and purposes they ARE wasted.

[Cha]

29. History will show just how

"wasted" their poor lives were but in the meantime.."sacrificed" is a much better word to describe the fallen in Iraq who were sent there by the bushit regime and have been killed by bush bombs.

They would be heroes if their blood saved any future deaths by bush lies.

[rodeodance]

40. seems he did-twice.

[C_U_L8R]

8. It is the President who wasted these precious young lives

with his ill-concieved and idiotic war plans.

Bush is the one who needs to apologize to every single American...
most especially the military families who have sacrificed so much.

[BOSSHOG]

9. bush treats them like trash and discards them like trash

and now he is proposing to cut health care for veterans. bush is the waster. Senator Obama was right. "Conservatives" do not give one flying dog fuck about our troops. Their "support" means buying a fucking cheapass magnet, equating their deaths with the numbers killed in car wrecks, repeating the dead troops are volunteers and many who return, lie about PTSD. Yes the ignorant trash which support bush are wasting our troops and are too fucking proud to admit they have been wrong for four years. Next year I'll be posting about they have been wrong for five years.

[Hardrada]

55. Thank you for expressing your view in those terms.

I have been trying to put together some thoughts like that for some time now. The truth is powerful. That's just exactly what they do.

[Jeanette in FL]

14. This is the thing that I despise about politicians

He speaks from the heart and tells the truth, then feels as though he needs to apologies.

He should say it loudly and proudly, "These soldiers lives were wasted because of the lies of the Bush administration".

No apology needed.

[catgirl]

18. In prefabbed war with no end, lives ARE wasted

Conyers said it too. I'm sure many politicians have said it.
And what Kerry said, the "joke", was true too.

[A Brand New World]

19. I just heard the entire statement on Scarborough. Obama owes

no one an apology. What he said is the truth!!

[MethuenProgressive]

20. Why apologize? Their lives were wasted by George W Bush!

I'd like to see some courage from our candidates.

[Eurobabe]

22. Bush is busy trying to devise a plan to waste the whole Middle East!

with his faulty surge. We need a SURGE Protector!! Like NOW...

[Bigmack]

21. The 58,000 US lives lost...

in Vietnam were "wasted", weren't they? Doesn't anybody remember that?

What's the big shock about Obama telling the truth? Better for military families to know the truth than believe the lie.

As long as the US keeps wasting lives in these hopeless clusterfucks, people have to recognize the waste for what it is.

How many lives lost in world history for just this kind of pointless shit?

[RaleighNCDUer]

23. Let's consult Webster:

Waste:
1) to destroy; devastate; ruin. -- yup
2) to wear away; consume gradually; use up -- yup
3) to make weak, feeble ... -- no
4) to use up or spend without real need, gain or purpose; squander -- a BIG yup to that one.
5) to fail to take proper advantage of -- yes and no, dependingg on POV
6) to kill, usually with violence; esp., to murder -- YUP

No apology necessary, Senator.

[Freddie Stubbs]

24. Semnator Obama is showing that he is quicker on his feet than Senator Kerry

After Kerry's botched joke he let the issue bounce around the news cycle for a day before he apoligized. Obama ended this quickly.

[ItNerd4life]

59. I agree. I also think he is much more credible than Kerry.

Kerry has a history of attacking military personnel (his claims about Vietnam soldiers were exxagerations) so when he botched his joke, people immediately assumed he was just resorting back to his old tactics.

Obama has never criticized military personnel so it's easy (and truthful) for him to say he was criticizing Bush. Everybody here knows, Bush deserves the criticism.

[GeorgeGist]

26. Okey Dokey...

now perhaps Obama will explain how he has benefited from the troops that were sacrificed ... but not wasted.

[JerseygirlCT]

27. I suppose it could have been said with more tact

and I suppose it's very, very hard for those who have lost loved ones to this stupid war to realize they have not lost loved ones because their loved ones were fighting for our freedom, but off on an escapade designed by evil men and perpetrated by an insane man.

[Bragi]

28. A "gaffe" is what happens whenever a hard truth is uttered /nt

[trogdor]

30. It should have been clear.

It was clear enough to me. Lives terminated needlessly are lives wasted, in a sense. The problem is, "wasted" suggests poor life choices on the part of the victim, as in, "he wasted his life playing World of Warcraft." For that I would have no problem apologizing, making it crystal clear in the process exactly what I meant, namely that these people - our best and finest - were squandered by President Bush for no better reason than to manipulate the public opinion polls he claimed so often to eschew.

[spanone]

31. When you start an illegal pre-emptive war based on false information you DO waste lives.

[donkeyotay]

32. The Waster in Chief and his warmongering media

have pretzel-ized debate in this country. You gin up a fake cause for an optional war for profit, totally screw it up because of your arrogance, and cause the death of a as-yet-to-be-determined number of Americans for no discernible benefit to this nation.... yep, wasted. Right along with the wasted lives of the permanently disabled, the wasted lives of the mentally disabled, the wasted lives spent working to earn the dollars for these fucks to piss away, the wasted sacrifice of The Greatest Generation...but in TeeVeeLand the main thing, the only thing is that you don't say anything to disturb the fantasy. Another pointless debate over minding our language.

[HuffleClaw]

33. for WHAT ????!!!!!

what a crock.

[jollyreaper2112]

35. crap

What he said was spot on. Backing down from it is crap.

[DrDan]

36. I am retired U.S.A.F. and certainly

do not feel offended in any way by that comment

just speaks to the ridiculousness of this debacle

[rodeodance]

39. Conyers, on the House floor said it today-----wasted lives (dead troops)

[IndianaGreen]

41. They were wasted in a war of choice by Bush who lied to them

by saying that Iraq was involved in 9-11 and that Saddam was in cahoots with Al-Qaeda, and that he had WMD.

[Forkboy]

42. True or not...

..this is the kind of thing opponents live for.

[bluedog]

44. Chuck Hagel (R) says its a "grinder"

..........Even 50,000 troops wouldn't turn it around," Chuck Hagel, the Nebraska senator and leading Republican dissent in Congress, said yesterday, urging the White House to "get out of the bog of tactical thinking". To send more troops "into that grinder - a tribal, sectarian civil war - is not going to fix the problem".


http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2154792.ece


..so why isn't he being cut in the back, side and front sides like Obama???




edit spelling

[ccpup]

45. He should show his courage,

embrace the statement and then flip the conversation to a running question about what those 3,000+ soldier's lives were given for. Halliburton's record profits? George Bush's "daddy" issues? The neo-cons desperate need to prove they have a bigger d*ck than anyone else? Military power in the Middle East? Just WHAT, exactly, did those soldier's give their lives for?

(and if the answer is "so the Iraqis could breathe the air of freedom", point out the curfews, the lack of basic electricity and water, the breathtaking number of deaths, the orphans, the lack of medical care compared to what it was 5 years ago, how the American occupied Green Zone has everything -- including McDonald's! -- while the surrounding area, where the Iraqis live, have next to nothing and then ask "is that freedom?")

[napi21]

46. I HATE the real world, but look back in history.

Absolutely NO candidate who was honest and told the truth EVER won the Presidency!

McGovern said "Yes, I will raise your taxes. Reagan will too, but I'll tell you, he won't!"

Americans don't like hearing the bare truth, and I don't know why!

[treestar]

47. A slip of the tongue?

Oh goodness, could this mean Senator Obama is inarticulate?

Really, what is there to apologize for? Their lives have been wasted.

[BeyondGeography]

48. This would have been a big problem in the '04 race

but not in 2008. A year from now, our troops will be on their way home with nothing besides a botched execution of Saddam Hussein to show for their efforts. Everyone except the wingnuts will agree this whole misadventure was a waste.

Still, good that Barack apologized twice, just so the dullest of the dull in the MSM didn't miss it. It's the only way to kill the story.

[Lost-in-FL]

49. he should have added...

wasted the lives of our bravest young soldiers and destroyed their loving families for NOTHING, FOR A LIE.

[youngdem]

50. If he opposes the war as unnecessary, how are they not wasted?

They are indeed wasted, don't get me wrong...I am just disappointed that he didn't defend his correct statement.

[antiimperialist]

52. Their lives were wasted in an unjust war, killing innocents

WASTED

W-A-S-T-E-D=Could have been used in something better. Useful.

[truthisfreedom]

53. This is great, because it lets him repeat the message again and again and get it into the media.

The thugs would love to capitalize on it, but everyone knows what he meant, especially because he's gone so public with his apologies to the military.

He's a class-act and the thugs know it. And it hurts.

[sleipnir]

56. Obama speaks the TRUTH then apologizes? Working hard to earn my vote and $$$...

What a terrible mistake.

Of course their lives were wasted, it's about time someone actually mentions this so we don't waste even more American soldiers. Pull out immediately.

[MzNov]

57. He should stop apologizing now. That's it. Everyone knows what he meant.

Besides, "lives wasted" is a term I've heard often for senseless death. And what could be more senseless than a death caused by he crimes of George Bush and Dick Cheyney?

:grr:

[Javaman]

58. This is the world we live in now, where a person has to apologize for

telling the truth.

"pfft, you can prove anything with facts"
-Homer Simpson

I'm so tired of living in an alternative universe.