Barbaric and totally representative of who and what the Saudi leadership is all about, but certain people on the left are only freaking out about this because it's Trump. You think Obama would have done anything substantively different? He would have come out with some statement condemning the Saudi actions and then done absolutely nothing about it, just like he did with the Saudis' war in Yemen.
Yes I believe Obama wouldn't have said "well they said they didn't do it" then ignored when they said they did it. And I believe he wouldn't have said "110 billion in arms deals is more important than one person's life". And I believe thetr would be some sort of response.
Obama was great at condemning things without actually doing anything. You don't have to speculate though. It's exactly what he did regarding Yemen, which I'd consider a much bigger deal than a single journalist.
I don't think he wanted to become involved in a war. I do think he'd react more strongly than a person who declares over and over and over that the press is the enemy of the people when a country executes a member of the press.
“You only care because [fill in the blank]” So? True or not, I care about the shitty thing that happened. Why I care isn’t the issue. The shitty thing that happened is. “You only care because [fill in the blank]” is a stupid person’s argument.
yes I think Obama wouldn't have said "well they buy lots of our weapons" then compared the Saudis to my alleged sexual predator supreme court nominee, after fomenting anti-press sentiment while buddying up with dictators, all while being financially intermingled on a personal level yemen is a mess and a humanitarian nightmare, the wattaboutism and comparison to Obama is meaningless
last i checked obama wasn’t nearly as much of a business guru as president deals so his pockets weren’t literally being lined by the saudis nice whataboutism tho!
when asked if he was giving cover to the saudis, trump replied today that they are buying "$450 billion worth of things" from us yeah i think obama would have been better than that
Trump's behavior is assuredly disgusting but that doesn't mean we have to pretend like we would have went to war with Saudi Arabia if we were in charge.
there's a big difference between an allied-condemnation & subsequent sanctions vs. what the WH is attempting to do which is basically help MBS cover this up.
yea, but part of that argument is also "you didn't care when...." People care more when their opposition is doing the shitty things, and are much more willing to excuse or ignore behaviors of the people they like. AND everyone sees when the other guy does it and is oblivious when they do it. for example, people who are now "normalizing" Trumps behavior look like complete assholes right now to Obama fans, while the people normalizing Trumps behavior see it as a perfectly justified reaction. When Obama was doing shitty things, those same people criticizing people for normalizing Trump's behavior were all too eager to normalize Obama's, or just ignore it. And, the same people normalizing Trump's behavior were not shy about condemning Obama for doing similarly, but not identical, shitty things. tl;dr: everyone thinks they are right and the other guy is wrong
"You didn't care when ..." doesn't make the thing currently cared about not a problem. It's still a shitty thing and it's a way dismiss that fact without addressing it. It frames the argument as not being about the problem but instead about the people that care about it. If you frame it as "why didn't you care when ... ?" instead, it may actually be a genuine attempt to gain understanding instead of an attempt to dismiss. Chances are that the response to that question would be something like "I didn't know about it." Reality can't be framed as a partisan political argument.
Obama's behavior, whether you agreed with his politics or not, was pretty much always "normal" you fucking simpleton.
I basically agree, but when I see people say "you didn't care when..." I don't draw a huge distinction between that and "why didn't you care when..." I think the sentiment is the same. You lose credibility as someone who cares when you pick and choose the issues you care about based on the letter after the person in power's name at the time of the shitty thing that happened.
We were overdue for one of riner's lectures about how everyone but him is a partisan sheep. Welcome back, simple prince.
But the credibility of the person complaining shouldn't impact your own opinion of whether or not the thing they are complaining about is something worthy of complaint. So, it's irrelevant and merely a form of dismissal
There are plenty of people who are not like you. I'm not unique. If I'm wrong, show me how I'm wrong about this instead of this basic response
I agree. Why didn't you care when Obama fans dismissed legitimate complaints about him with - "you didn't care when Bush did it!" ?
Not to derail this thread, but there was an entire wing of the GOP party that was created because of budget deficits under Obama. They even went as far as holding mass protests and running political candidates. I have not seen one of them as the current budget deficit tops a trillion dollars in a good economy. So if we're going to talk about selective outrage
Do you have something in mind to compare to the murder of the man this thread is about or are you just doing your weird thing in here because you want to
The drone attacks and displacing/killing hundreds, or thousands of innocent people and children? His treating of SA with kid-gloves relative to the Yemen situation? Executing American citizens without trial by deeming them "enemy combatants"? The very, very low standard for adding civilians, even Americans over seas, to the terrorist database (and thus allowing them to be killed)?
1. Obama did wrong. 2. Trump is currently doing wrong. 1 doesn't excuse 2. If you have to use past issues to deflect from current issues, shame on you.
HA! well sure, it's different. There are no identical comparisons, SA didn't kill any journalists who lived in the US when Obama was president. Obama did, however, actually kill American citizens without trials. That's not close enough for you?
If I was bitching about Trumps drone strikes and didn't bitch about the same procedures under obama (which isn't the case, trump has increased them) then your idea might make some sense. When did Obama get involved in and help facilitate the cover up of a murder committed by a foreign dictator?
"Why didn't you care when people said the Earth was round and proved it mathematically and with science?"
You can't preach fiscal responsibility for 8 years and then subsequently increase the federal deficit by 17% in less than two years while simultaneously cutting the federal budget's biggest source of revenue w/ no incentives to replace said revenue w/out being prodigious hypocrites.
Obama made tactical errors (Syria, Russia, for example). Trump is literally making decisions with the intended outcome being the increased profitablilty of his family and his donors. The two aren’t comparable.
that spicy mustard eating motherfucker putting his damned feet on the desk in the oval office, did he think he owned the place?
people realize many Dems and especially left wing media/officials constantly brought up Obamas hyper aggressive foreign policy with drones, etc right? its the weirdest revisionist history and completely devoid of reality
you didn't but when you juxtapose like that without further context people are going to assume that you're meriting the wrongdoings with similar value.