Well, I hope President Gore’s happy now. He’s got a warm body to ensure his 2004 re-election bid, and proven that he’s muy macho than President George H.W. Bush. And it only took the deaths of hundreds of US soldiers and thousands of Iraqis to accomplish it.
As a right-thinking American, I can only shake my head at this travesty. After Gore’s utter failure at capturing bin Laden–and with the GOP rightly launching a two year investigation into his inability to prevent the 9/11 disaster (an investigation he tried to stonewall and then cut back to 18 months so the bad news wouldn’t hit right around the election; thank God the GOP saw through that obvious attempt)–he went after someone he *could* find. Concerned about the Iraqi people? Please. Oil, yes. Reelection, yes. The people? People in China and Saudi Arabi are treated just as badly if not worse, and those are our allies.
So he bamoozles Congress with tales of non-existent weapons of mass destruction. Saddam keeps telling the UN he doesn’t have them, and we insist he does. The valiant GOP tried to prevent an aggression that will verify every negative thing the world thinks about us, but the Democrats shove it through, so they won’t look like the weak-kneed, soft-on-crime-and-terrorist party they are. And now it’s nine months later, and we finally have in hand a dictator (with no WMDs, of course). And the joy of it for Gore is that 70% of America has such a short attention span that they think we’ve nailed the guy who was responsible for 9/11.
Say this for Gore: He’s mastered the knack for misdirection that he learned from his old boss, Clinton, whose fault 9/11 really was. Gotta give him that. This has been a masterful scam that P.T. Barnum would envy. Because Americans aren’t going to care about anything other than that We Caught A Bad Guy. The fact that we’ve fostered a brand new generation of terrorists while doing it, that we’ve squandered the international good will we had from 9/11 and put ourselves into record-setting debt doing it…none of that matters.
Let’s hope enough people see through Gore’s obvious deceptions. But somehow I doubt it.
PAD
• 
Robert Jung said:
Bravo to PAD for a razor-sharp piece of satire that hits the target dead smack in the center.
Razor-sharp satire? Did I miss something? I see PAD saying, essentially, the same stuff he’s been saying for the last few months, but substituting Al Gore’s name for George Bush’s. This is razor-sharp satire?
Considering PAD’s usually obvious talent as a writer, and the fact that he posted this, what, two days after the news came out, I’m downright disappointed that this is the best he could come up with.
I have to say as someone not from the US those of you who support Bush look like idiots.
I have to say as someone who is an American that you can put on a blouse and skirt and prance around like a sugar-plum faerie in your front yard… and I won’t ever care.
Ok we agree getting off to a good start here
This is a man who does not have command of the english language.
Back in 2000, when it was time to decide whether Bush being unqualified to teach high school english mattered, the majority of Americans decided that it didn’t (seriously…. I’m certain that the majority of the people who voted against him actually decided to do it for an altogether different and less petty reason).
Wow I really thought you would try to disagree with the idiot thing this is going so well
When people offer well thought out points about his failures as a president you crawl into a corner putting your hands over your ears and shout “la, la, la, la”.
Thank you for your well-informed description of what I do. Your intellgence capacity rivals that of Israel. You should be hired by the Mossad, quickly, before a rival agency snatches you up.
Frankly, rather than an insult I’d be more impressed if you gave an genuine “well thought out” argument, rather than a leftist blanket statement.
Ok then I see that when support Bushes actions they ignore almost all damage that has been done by his actions, the fact that the dollar has dropped bacause of the lack of support. The amount of people killed both American and other when the UN was actually getting the job done they were sent into do. (If this is not the case how could a man hiding in a hole hide all the WMD from the US army?)
Finally if so many people are calling you dìçkš why don’t you believe them? I believe some of them. I also know that it’s okay to be one if you are in my position… that is… crusading for truth and justice.
Much of the world (if you are not with us you are against us (most of the world is against you)) doesn’t agree that you have used either truth or justice in your actions.
What make you look more stupid is that most people in your own country are making fun of you and you don’t get the joke.
I get the joke; I just don’t think it’s funny.
The Daily Show makes fun of everybody and is non-partison satire. Micheal Moore is an intelligent guy who lacks a consistent political philosophy and writes leftist propaganda because it makes him a lot of money.
The joke is that you claim to be a powerful country yet you send people in to fight and die rather than find the less voilent way to act. Your actions are like hitting someone with a blunt sword and you think you are effective
do you know your country looks like evil dictators in Iraq?
Blanket statement. Specify terms.
300 of the Iraq army quit the day before Saddam was found because they were going to be paid the equlivent of something like 120 a week. The oil contracts that were secured were given to American companies for no specific reasons. Spoils of invasion. And the biggest indication your forces are still being killed, that is a sign that people feel they are being repressed. No matter how mighty your army is surpossed to be they still want to fight
Do you know you entered into a war that the world did not support?
Define “the world”.
The planet on which we live, supporting over six billion people, divided into seven plates on which different countries are divided into countries.
Do you know you are ignoring the failing of your government at home?
If there’s an election year in 2004, then our government isn’t failing.
Wow can’t say it any other way, that’s dumb
And finally are you planning on doing anything to fix your own home that sufferes worse problems than many third world places?
The dish-washer is full and I’m out of detergent. My gosh, you are right!
*If that’s all the problems you see, then you are in more trouble than I thought. Hope you have fun as Europe takes over as the lead superpower
I have to say, this is amusing the hëll out of me. I write a tongue-in-cheek piece over how I believe conservatives would be reacting were Gore in office. On the one hand I’m accused of producing a caricature; on the other hand, responses include over-the-top namecalling, and accusations that Clinton was somehow responsible for 9/11. If GOPers are placing the blame on Clinton and he wasn’t even in office, imagine how much more likely they would have been to place the blame on Gore if he *had* been in office. Which was, of course, the point of the entry–the rampant hypocrisy of supporting Bush for actions that Gore would have been condemned for. Yet I’m told there’s no reason for me to think this.
I think that’s swell.
PAD
PAD and others:
It is unlikely that you would have seen such a reaction to recent events if Gore were president. The GOP simply doesn’t conduct itself in that manner, nor do most conservatives.
BWAAAHAHAHAHA! Oh, man, that’s hysterical! That is the funniest thing I’ve seen on this topic in…
Oh. Oh, good lord. You meant that seriously.
Sorry.
PAD
PAD wrote:
The fact that we’ve fostered a brand new generation of terrorists while doing it, that we’ve squandered the international good will we had from 9/11.
Umm what internatioanl good will was that Most of the comments I heard was we had it coming because we’re such an imperialist country. I find it amusing that most of the people criticising us came from imperialist countries.
I know you remember this because several of the comments came from posters on your AOL message board and even YOU responded to them for a while.
I’ll ask this in the spirit of Bizzaro World theoretical discussion, rather than partisan blame shifting: What would post- 9/11 America be like if McCain had won the Republican nomination and the 2000 election? Would McCain have invaded Iraq? I don’t have a very high opinion of Bush2 or his handling of 9/11 and all that came afterward, but I tend to think that McCain would’ve handled things a lot differently… maybe even a lot better.
The OTHER John Byrne
I’ll ask this in the spirit of Bizzaro World theoretical discussion, rather than partisan blame shifting: What would post- 9/11 America be like if McCain had won the Republican nomination and the 2000 election? Would McCain have invaded Iraq? I don’t have a very high opinion of Bush2 or his handling of 9/11 and all that came afterward, but I tend to think that McCain would’ve handled things a lot differently… maybe even a lot better.
I would tend to agree with this. Having been not just a soldier, but a POW in Viet Nam – even more to the point – having served in the Senate for years (including committees on both defense and international issues) McCain would have had a more measured response than either Bush or Gore.
It’s funny – George W. Bush first seemed most presidential to me (and gained the highest poll ratings to that point) when he grabbed a bullhorn at Ground Zero just a few days after 9-11 and literally rallied the nation and the world.
In fact, it was in that role that he felt most comfortable because it was what he was best at even back in college: the role of cheerleader.
So why not let him do what he is obviously good at and create a special office for ol’ Dubya: Cheerleader in Chief!
He could be as provocative as he likes, make everyone feel good with his rah rah-aren’t we great speeches and not actually have any responsibility or do any harm.
“Bring ’em on!”
A lot of conservative people don’t seem to understand that most liberals won’t jump to defend “their” (meaning one they term a liberal) president when they beleive that he HAS done something wrong. Clinton’s bombing of Iraq back aways was veiwed as wrong and brash in many ways by liberals. Clinton can do wrong, Clinton HAS done wrong. As has Gore, as has pretty much every politician. That is the weakness some might say (especially from the conservative side) of the liberals, the flaw that destroys the supposed theory of the liberal agenda. The liberals will not back no matter what a person simply because he has their party name. The Liberals are not unified in any sense. They are fractured and spread, with similar ideas but a one single unifying vision. There are no true liberal fundamentalists. There is only liberal passions. While the conservatives mostly stick to a single cause. There are small fractures but they are tiny and highly outnumbered.
McCain seemed at the time of the 2000 election to be a new type of republican, i actually liked him better than Gore. In the primary i actually voted for McCain. WOuld he have handled things differently with Iraq? probably. He would not have had the same cabinet members and the like who have been obsessed with Saddam since Desert Storm. I doubt he would have invaded nor used falsified evidence to drum up support nor alude to possible connections between al-Qaida and Iraq. Would he have handled Afghanistan differently? maybe a little but not that differently(Gore would have done about the same as well, there was little choice in that matter. We wouldn’t have had the huge corporate ties with the government that we now have also being granted massive favors in both Iraq, Afghanistan, and the US.
The modern entwined history and politics of the Middle East and Western Civilization, i.e., Europe and the United States, was conceived at the end of the 1800’s and was born at the end of World War I. The end of the Ottoman Empire, the creation of nation-states such as Iraq and Trans-Jordan by Britain, the discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia, the Balfour Declaration, the debacle of the French, British, Egypitians and Americans over the Suez Canal, the coup d’etat in Iran masterminded by the CIA to place the Shah in power, the founding of the State of Israel…all these things happened before the 20th century turned 50.
Everything has to do with oil, boys and girls.
Except the founding of the State of Israel. Which basically happened because (1) Europe and America had a huge guilt complex over the Holocaust; and (2) Europe and America didn’t know what else to do with all those displaced Jews;
I am being very cynical about the birth of Israel, by the way. In reality I am very glad Israel exists, whatever the political reasons it came into existance. (This does not mean I agree with everything Israel does, by the way.)
The best way for the United States to fight the “war on terror” is to throw its massive resources into finding ways to free us from dependency on Middle East oil. This is the country that put a man in the moon in seven years, for Christ’s sake! Of course, that was all because we were afraid the Russians were going to get there first and turn it into a giant missile launching pad. (The other boons that came from it were incidental to the politicos, at least to my cynical eyes.)
How nice it would be, in my humble opinion, to be able to say to all the despots and fundamentalist crazies in that continuously fûçkëd-ûp part of the world:
“Oil? We don’t need no stinkin’ oil!”
Mindy
The best way for the United States to fight the “war on terror” is to throw its massive resources into finding ways to free us from dependency on Middle East oil.
Well, ya see, that’s the problem with having an administration that is so entrenched in the back pockets of the oil industry: the incentives are not there to find ALTERNATIVE energy sources.
There are many people who did not respect Jimmy Carter as president, but one thing he TRIED to do was to begin that very program to eliminate our dependency on foreign oil. To size down cars in the name of energy efficiency, etc.
But 12 years of republican presidents in the 80’s and early 90’s led to Americans forgetting about the huge gasoline lines of the early 70’s and an attitude of “don’t worry be happy” began to prevail.
By the Clinton administration, energy efficiency and alternative fuel agendas gave way to Americans going for huge, oil guzzling SUV’s, never even NOTING the mileage. Gas prices (which hovered at around 28 cents in 1973) shot up to 50 cents, then a $1.50 in the late 70’s. But once prices went down to below a dollar – americans forgot all about the gas lines.
Now, we get all squeaky and squawky when prices get up to $2 and wonder why o’ why are we paying so much for gasoline. Meanwhile we pay LESS for the precious liquid than any other nation on earth and STILL are doing nothing to create more efficient engines.
While electric cars, for example, have turned out to be impractical, MIXED use vehicles (gas AND electric) can get up to 60 miles per gallon. More actually, if the proper research were to continue.
But Americans won’t spring for the extra $1000 that car manufacturers are charging for the vehicles (even though it would pay for itself in a year or two).
And so the Bushies, Cheney and other oilers in office will continue to do what’s best for their real constitiuency: the oil industry.
So: is the war about oil? Well,yeah. But it never HAD to be.
We need the oil because those who have been [COUGH) duly elected wouldn’t ahve it any other way.
Yawn, you lefties or Buah haters or whatever you like to call yourselves are really starting to sound like a broken record. Bush won, get over it and he’ll win again and I hope to god he does just to shut you people up. I am a moderate and proud of it. Thank God I dont think they way you people do.
HOW IS THE WAR ABOUT OIL? Please tell me cause Id like to know just how much IRAQ oil we use in this country, next to none. Im so sick of the tired of hearing this war was for oil bûllšhìŧ. Are we a richer country now? Are we supplied solely by IRAQI oil now?? Funny I thought it was OPEC oil that we use imported from Saudi’s our good friends. Please come up with new arguements will ya???
Talk about a broken record.
GET OVER IT.
oh wait, you Bush haters have no new arguements.
**”Back in 2000, when it was time to decide whether Bush being unqualified to teach high school english mattered, the majority of Americans decided that it didn’t (seriously…. I’m certain that the majority of the people who voted against him actually decided to do it for an altogether different and less petty reason).”
Actually Al Gore recieved the popular vote.**
I never mentioned who got the popular vote. I know who got the popular vote. I just maintain my faith that most people who voted for Gore didn’t do so because George W. Bush smudged up words.
geeeez.
Fine… I now believe that more people voted for Gore because of his mastery of the englis language.
CJA
Pretty much as is the case with North Korea, come to think of it, where people are in far worse shape, by all accounts, yet we aren’t invading there, are we?
do you think that we should?
CJA
, and Osama was caught without firing a single shot and the GOP can’t understand why we wanted him so badly since, y’know, he never really succeeded in anything he was plotting.
He did plot the original World Trade Center bombing during the Clinton Administration. The World Trade Center was bombed during the Clinton Administration.
Your world is bizarre.
“Hey, Peter, remember that column you wrote back after the first Iraq war? The one about Crazy Eight in The Incredible Hulk and one, small death?“
You’re comparing this stuff to the Incredible Hulk? You’re ACTUALLY comparing this stuff to the FREAKING INCREDIBLE HULK???
Way to trivialize something so serious! I happen to support Bush and the actions in Iraq, but I am a lot less offended by PAD’s original post and his supporters than I am by someone trying to logically mix a cartoon character into the debate!
“By the Clinton administration, energy efficiency and alternative fuel agendas gave way to Americans going for huge, oil guzzling SUV’s, never even NOTING the mileage. Gas prices (which hovered at around 28 cents in 1973) shot up to 50 cents, then a $1.50 in the late 70’s. But once prices went down to below a dollar – americans forgot all about the gas lines.“
Hey guys…interesting point here, but I believe nearly 50% of per-gallon gas prices are TAXES. Lobby your democratic senators and state governments for lower taxes (a mantra not usually supported by the socialist left), and maybe gas COULD BE a bit more affordable.
**”By the Clinton administration, energy efficiency and alternative fuel agendas gave way to Americans going for huge, oil guzzling SUV’s, never even NOTING the mileage. Gas prices (which hovered at around 28 cents in 1973) shot up to 50 cents, then a $1.50 in the late 70’s. But once prices went down to below a dollar – americans forgot all about the gas lines.”
Hey guys…interesting point here, but I believe nearly 50% of per-gallon gas prices are TAXES. Lobby your democratic senators and state governments for lower taxes (a mantra not usually supported by the socialist left), and maybe gas COULD BE a bit more affordable. **
Way to miss the point, big guy.
Jim Burdo: The fact that we’ve fostered a brand new generation of terrorists while doing it, that we’ve squandered the international good will we had from 9/11
This crap again? That column by Fuoud Ajami that I posted demolished it.
Just because you back up what you said with something someone else said does not in and of itself make you right… especially when your ‘evidence’ is an opinion piece. Yes, it was well-written and made some good points, but I hardly think it “demolished” the ‘squandered good-will’ argument. I appreciate Mr. Burdo’s efforts at backing up his arguments with links (’cause I do read them), but expressing an opinion with style and clarity does not necessarily make Fuoud Ajami any more ‘right’ than me expressing my arguments with style and clarity would make me ‘right.’ Proof’s in the pudding, and Mr. Ajami’s -despite his skill- was a little to light for my taste.
tOjb
David K:“Hey, Peter, remember that column you wrote back after the first Iraq war? The one about Crazy Eight in The Incredible Hulk and one, small death?”
You’re comparing this stuff to the Incredible Hulk? You’re ACTUALLY comparing this stuff to the FREAKING INCREDIBLE HULK???
Did you even finish reading all of the post? Have you read the column PAD wrote that Mr. Jung was referring to? (You can find it in the ‘archived entries’ section of this site, it’s ’06/24/2003 Archived Entry: “ONE LITTLE DEATH”.’) I suggest you do both; perhaps you’ll see what Mr. Jung was getting at.
tOjb
I never actually said this particular war was about oil, boys and girls. I was just trying to give a very, very, VERY brief synopsis of what has driven the political interests of the Western world in the Middle East since the beginning of the 20th century.
And that is oil. Plain and simple.
And no, I don’t think the only reason we went into Iraq was because of its oil reserves. And no, I don’t think it was a pesonal vendetta by George W. to get back at Hussein for the (supposed) hit he put out on George H. In fact, I was never against the war per se; my concern was post-war era, because I believed that “Stupid White Men,” to borrow a phrase from Michael Moore, had/have true understanding of Middle Eastern culture, so different from our own.
Nor did/do they have any true interest in trying to understand Middle Eastern culture.
We will see what happens. What if the Iraqis hold their election and vote for an Islamic theocracy? Will we do what we did in Iran? Or will we respect the democratic principles as we say we do and leave it alone?
THAT’S the scariest part of all of this to me.
They’re gonna find the WMD three days before Election Day. I wonder if anyone will notice the curious timing.
And speaking of timing, isn’t it a little, um, coincidental that Saddam was found so close to Christmas, a time when Americans are usually in a more giving/trusting frame of mind? Reeks of manipulation.
OK, here’s a thought.
What if instead of anybody being able to post on the board anytime, there was a log in system. To register your name and get a password, you first have to fill out a questionare about Peter David. Nothing too hard, just basic stuff. If you get most of them right, then you can get a password and log in anytime you want.
I have no idea how hard that would be to set up, so I can’t really say it’s a “good” idea.
Some boards have a requirement that you can’t post more than once a minute. Does this board have something like that?